City Harvest is the city’s largest food rescue organization. Its mission is to help feed the 1.2 million New Yorkers who struggle to put food on the table. This year, it expects to rescue 68 million pounds of food and deliver it to food banks, soup kitchens and other distribution points across the Five Boroughs.

Unemployment and deprivation are rising sharply at the same time as City Harvest’s main source of food, surplus from New York’s restaurants, has completely dried up. At the time of greatest need, City Harvest is therefore been forced to pay for food from supermarkets. The same is true of staff – as fewer people are volunteering, the charity has been forced to pay for more salaried staff. The combination of these factors has led to a dramatic rise in costs and an urgent need for funding.

Covenant House New York is working to ensure homeless youth in the city remain safe and secure in the face of Covid-19. In response to the pandemic, they’ve retro-fitted ~12 rooms as “Wellness Rooms” for youth who are symptomatic or have tested positive along with an on-site health clinic. With schools closed and unemployment rising dramatically, CHNY is now serving double the meals as before. In the next couple of months the charity will need an additional $1.5 million – $2 million to deal with increased demand caused by Covid-19.

Frontline Foods is a grassroots organization that raises money from the community to pay local restaurants to prepare meals for the heroes responding to the Covid-19 crisis. Fueled by a growing army of over 400 volunteers, to date they’ve raised over $1.5 million and delivered more than 50,000 meals to frontline workers in over 50 hospitals nationwide. Our contributions will be directed to their New York City operations.

Our donation to Mount Sinai Hospital will help increase its capacity, enhancing its ability to care for the growing number of Covid-19 patients requiring admission. Triage tents have been erected at several of its hospitals and in Central Park to expand its much-needed emergency facilities.

The hospital urgently needs funds for supplies – including protective kit such as masks, gowns and gloves to keep healthcare workers safe, and lifesaving equipment such as ventilators for critically ill patients.

New York City Health and Hospitals is the largest public healthcare system in the United States, it serves more than a million New Yorkers each year across 70 locations – irrespective of their ability to pay or their immigration status.

Our funding will provide for meals, accommodation costs, laundry service, groceries for healthcare workers’ families and other direct expenses. This money will help doctors, nurses and other employees to provide the best care for patients without exposing themselves or their families to undue risk.

In collaboration with our Boston colleagues, we have committed to Off Their Plate, a charity that creates work at a network of local restaurants who in turn make meals to feed frontline healthcare professionals. For every $100 donated, 10 meals are sent to frontline healthcare workers and three shift hours are restored at restaurants. Our contributions will be directed to their New York City operations.

The UCSF Medical Center is a network of more than a half-dozen hospital campuses around San Francisco. The Advent commitment will be used to address the needs of patients and caregivers by providing diagnostics and testing, emergency provision for the uninsured, medical research and support for frontline healthcare workers. Our donation to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) will go towards providing basic needs such as shelter, food, clothing and financial assistance to the most vulnerable Covid-19 affected Bay Area communities.

As well as these two primary partners, the Palo Alto office is delighted to support two food banks: The SF/Marin Foodbank and Second Harvest of Silicon Valley. Both provide pop-up and drive-thru pantries as well as home-delivery services for homebound citizens during Covid-19. The Advent commitment will enable these great charities to serve roughly 200,000 meals to those most in need in their local communities. Last, but by no means least, we are partnering with the SVCF Covid-19 Small Business Relief Fund, which provides immediate support to struggling self-employed and small business owners in the form of loans, grants and technical assistance.