Harlem Man Honored For Helping Families Survive Pandemic

HARLEM, NY — Tony Hillery is no stranger to helping Harlem. The founder of Harlem Grown, he has worked to convert more than a dozen vacant lots in the neighborhood into urban farms over the past nine years, helping nourish food-insecure children.

Hillery's work helps address an ongoing crisis that is especially severe in New York City, where more than 114,000 children are homeless and about one in five is food insecure, according to the Food Bank of New York City.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit in the spring, Hillery realized the neighborhood was facing a challenge of another order — especially once the city moved to close down public schools.

"Most of our kids go to school for not only their academics — they go there for their nutrition," Hillery told Patch. "They have breakfast, lunch, and kids who are in after-school [programs] stay for supper."

Almost immediately, Hillery thought of a contact he'd made more than a year earlier: JJ Johnson, the James Beard-award-winning chef behind the restaurant Fieldtrip in Central Harlem, who, like so many others, had been forced to temporarily close his restaurant. Hillery called Johnson and made him a proposal.

"If I bought 400 dinners, would he be able to open up his kitchen and bring back his staff?" Hillery recalled. "And he said, yeah."

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Our farms are quiet this summer and we are missing the vibrant energy of our students, campers, and community. Although our programs might look a bit different in the upcoming months, rest assured we are cooking up something here at Harlem Grown so we can continue to grow, learn, and connect from afar. More info to come later this week...
A post shared by Harlem Grown (@harlemgrown) on Jul 22, 2020 at 12:33pm PDT

The resulting partnership between Fieldtrip and Harlem Grown sent more than 2,000 meals to shelters around the neighborhood. Its success prompted an expansion to four more Harlem restaurants, which eventually spent six days a week delivering more than 13,000 hot meals.

"It’s a no-brainer: we raise the money, we support the local economy, and we feed our families," Hillery said.

At the same time, Hillery realized that the difficulties facing Harlem's youth extended beyond food insecurity: as remote learning picked up in the spring, thousands of students had trouble accessing the devices they needed to log on for class.

The issue wasn't exactly within Harlem Grown's normal purview of food insecurity, Hillery noted, but the exceptional times called for action.

"You have two options: shrug your shoulders and say, 'Hey, that’s out of my mission statement,' or you try to address it," Hillery said.

He chose the latter option. An initial appeal to Harlem Grown's donors yielded a handful of laptops — a welcome donation, Hillery said, but "a mere trickle when you’re dealing with a waterfall."

Then, in late August, Hillery was contacted by TD Bank, a longtime partner of Harlem Grown, whose representatives asked him to participate in a commercial for their employees, along with five children from Harlem Grown's programs.

In fact, the company had summoned them in order to surprise them with a donation of 100 laptops to Harlem schoolchildren. The gift was part of an ongoing "TD Thanks You" campaign, in which the bank is highlighting positive work by its customers and partners during the crisis.

Hillery, who said he dislikes surprises, admitted that this one was welcome — and much-needed. Still, he hasn't lost sight of the irony of the situation: that the health and well-being of New York City's youth has depended on charity.

"We’re in the richest city in the country, if not the world, and I work with hungry, homeless children," he said. "Go figure."

Patch has partnered with Feeding America to help raise awareness on behalf of the millions of Americans facing hunger. Feeding America, which supports 200 food banks across the country, estimates that in 2020, more than 54 million Americans will not have enough nutritious food to eat due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. This is a Patch social good project; Feeding America receives 100 percent of donations. Find out how you can donate in your community or find a food pantry near you.