evlovesnyc

Changing a life can be as simple as ticking a box.

EVLovesNYC wants to provide instruction (in three languages!) on food safety rules to neighbors who are facing financial hardship. Passing an exam and getting certification as a food handler from the NYC Dept of Health can start people on their way to a culinary career. Just having the certificate can mean better job opportunities.

All you have to do to help is vote for us! Go to bit.ly/vote4evlovesnyc (or click the linktr.ee link in our bio) and cast a vote to launch someone’s future.

You’re eligible to vote if you live, work, volunteer, or go to school in District 2 (Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side). Do us — and our neighbors — a solid!

One thing that makes EVLovesNYC unique: We were set up to be a B2B operation — a food bank that provides just-cooked meals to other organizations so that they can distribute them in their own community. We thought that supporting local voluntarism and trust among neighbors was important and ultimately meant more than having outsiders step in to help. Plus we could focus on the cooking and not get bogged down in distribution logistics.

Then NYC immigrant history landed at the door of our kitchen in 2023. All of a sudden, recently arrived asylum seekers came by the dozen to ask for a hot meal. We began setting up a table at Tompkins Square Park and distributing food, coffee, and water there, three times a week. We’re still at the park on Sundays from 12-2pm, serving our neighbors, rain or shine. Or intense cold.

In 2024, when we were working out of a commercial kitchen on West Houston St., locals began to show up at the door to get food for themselves and their neighbors. We were a little surprised to find so many food-insecure people in an area that seems so affluent but there they were and they became regulars and friends. (Like you wouldn’t fall for a person who brings food home to their housebound next door neighbor?)

So now, along with our ongoing B2B operations, we run two Sunday distribution sites, one on the south central end of Tompkins Square Park and the other on the northeast corner of Houston and LaGuardia Place. Getting food into the hands of our regulars has become a habit we don’t want to quit.

We are always looking for dedicated volunteers (and drivers) to help. And, you know, donors, too.

Clean and mean. Or tbh, clean and really, really nice.

Our third shift crew marches in at the end of the cooking day, ready for action. Imagine volunteering to tackle a kitchen where 2300 messy meals were just prepped, cooked, and assembled. These brave souls don’t just take out the trash, they make sure everything is scrubbed and wiped and mopped and dried and ready for the next day. Attention to detail is their collective superpower.

During the week, they are nurses and economists and project managers and client liaisons but we know them as truly kind and clever geniuses who play a dynamic and often thankless role in our operation. ♥️