{"id":50613,"date":"2025-11-24T18:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T18:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/50613\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T18:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T18:24:07","slug":"catholic-charities-cardinal-dolan-kick-off-giving-season-with-food-giveaway-amid-growing-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/50613\/","title":{"rendered":"Catholic Charities, Cardinal Dolan Kick off giving season with food giveaway amid growing need"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Cardinal\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Cardinal Timothy Dolan (left) and Catholic Charities handed out food for Thanksgiving to those in need.<\/p>\n

Photos by Claude Solnik<\/p>\n

Cardinal Timothy Dolan and officials from Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, after Sunday Mass at St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral, kicked off the holidays and the distribution of food for Thanksgiving, including turkeys and trimmings, expected to feed more than 3,000 families.<\/p>\n

While Santa may prefer a sled, they spoke near a 21-foot truck with about 7,000 pounds of food parked outside the cathedral after a mass filled to a capacity of around 2,500.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Thanksgiving food distribution began last week and continues this week, but the event at St. Patrick\u2019s is a traditional ceremony designed to draw attention to the effort and inspire others to join in helping meet the need.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe filled a food truck with food to feed those without,\u201d Cardinal Dolan said near a truck with the words \u201cFeeding our Neighbors\u201d as well as \u201cCatholic Charities, Archdiocese of New York\u201d and \u201c100 years providing help, creating hope.\u201d \u201cPeople are in a generous, charitable mood. Catholic Charities does this all year, every day, all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cardinal Dolan blessed Catholic Charities\u2019 food to be distributed in the upcoming days as the effort gets up to full speed.\n<\/p>\n

They plan to distribute more than 500 turkeys and traditional fixings on Tuesday at the annual Thanksgiving distribution at the Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy Community Center in Harlem.<\/p>\n

\"Cardinal<\/a>Cardinal Dolan blesses the food.Photo by Claude Solnik<\/p>\n

Cardinal Dolan said he was \u201cextraordinarily grateful\u201d for support in their efforts and hopes \u201cto inspire others\u201d to join in helping others.<\/p>\n

\u201cBless us, bless this food we are honored to share. Continue to make our land fruitful,\u201d he said. \u201cLet our love for you be seen, and our pursuit of peace and justice and charity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York is a federation of roughly 90 agencies and programs in the Archdiocese\u2019s 10 counties.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been blessed with many donations from private donors and corporations. We\u2019ve been doing this for decades,\u201d said J. Antonio Fern\u00e1ndez, CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York. \u201cEvery time we run out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Catholic Charities distributes food all year long, the Thanksgiving distribution includes turkey and trimmings, such as corn bread, collard greens, apples, potatoes, onions, milk and eggs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen an increase in the number of people needing food pantry assistance,\u201d said Lakisha Morris, division director of food and housing for Catholic Charities for the Diocese of New York. \u201cThere\u2019s inflation, the halt in SNAP benefits many were receiving. We\u2019re seeing people income-wise are in need of resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Reps<\/a>Reps from Catholic Charities address the crowd.Photo by Claude Solnik<\/p>\n

As part of its holiday distribution, Catholic Charities plans to provide Halal Thanksgiving turkeys to 100 Bronx families with the Islamic Society of the Bronx, as well as turkeys and trimmings to 750 households through food distribution sites at churches in Morningside Heights, Washington Heights and the Bronx.<\/p>\n

They also plan to provide a special Thanksgiving meal for 200 families at the Mitchell Houses in the Bronx, the site of the building collapse back in October.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s in addition to emergency meals for 300 households at pantries consisting of lean protein, produce and items that stay fresh on the shelf.\n<\/p>\n

In addition to its holiday efforts, Catholic Charities operates food pantries, does pop-up and home distributions year-round, and provides other services such as case management and eviction prevention<\/p>\n

\u201cCollectively, we serve 10 million meals,\u201d Morris said, \u201chundreds of thousands of families throughout the year.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

They also plan to provide coats, sweaters, pajamas, and winter accessories for 500 individuals and families in need through their annual St. Nicholas Project Shopping Day.<\/p>\n

And they are launching their annual Adopt A Family initiative, which invites members of the public to \u201cadopt\u201d a family in need for their holiday wish list and buy winter necessities for each household member.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez said holiday food drives have long been a part of the holiday season for the Catholic Church, emphasizing the importance of giving and doing good while helping those in need.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost Catholic Charities do this around the country,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are blessed to have and more blessed to give.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cardinal Timothy Dolan (left) and Catholic Charities handed out food for Thanksgiving to those in need. Photos by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[8576,11217,28307,75,84,83,9,24,63,6967],"class_list":["post-50613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-cardinal-timothy-dolan","tag-catholic-charities-of-new-york","tag-food-giveaway","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-thanksgiving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}