Hungry in NY and Can't Afford Supermarket Prices:

If hunger is burning a hole in your stomach because you don’t have enough food to eat and feed your family, you’re not alone. There are millions of other people who can’t afford to buy food in supermarkets.

In this series I’ll tell you how you can use pantries, food banks, community fridges, food shelves, mobile markets, community gardens, neighbors helping neighbors food donation sites, and more.

You never have to go hungry again. I’ll tell you how you can find good quality food for yourself and your family without having to pay sky high supermarket and grocery store prices.

If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, a sudden change of events could turn your world upside down in a heartbeat. It’s not unusual to be faced with having to make a choice between paying an essential bill or buying food to eat.

It happened to me. When my beloved husband, Angel passed away 2 years ago on April 21, 2021, I became a widow in the blink of an eye. Suddenly my world turned upside down.

Shortly after my husband, Angel died, my landlord refused to renew my lease because I was not earning enough income to keep the 2 BR apartment. I felt pressured to leave my home in New York. The landlord was harassing tenants and locking them out and I was afraid of being next if I didn't leave voluntarily.

Being a 60 year old widow shook me to my core. The prospect of being alone after experiencing a frightening encounter with a strange man who came to my home a few months earlier was terrifying to me.

My 31 year old son, PT graciously agreed to stay with me and help me out until I got back on my feet again.

After losing our apartment in New York, we went to live with my daughter, Cara and her husband, Elijah in Maine. Just a couple months later, they sold their home and I lost my job. PT had to quit his job at Dollar tree so we could leave Maine and move to New York to live temporarily with my in-laws.

Being so cash tight and living temporarily with family not wanting to impose any further, I knew I had to find other ways to get food besides relying on the local grocery.

Have supermarket prices been strangling you too? The free food I’m talking about is just one of thousands of free services that is provided through United States government money programs called grants.

If you earn less than $100K/year and your household income is less than $198K/year grants can help you. And in many cases food services such as those described in this series which are provided through non-profit organizations often do not have eligibility caps on income. This makes it possible for anyone who needs food to get it.

You may wonder why I know so much about this. I learned about all these government benefits called grants back in 2020. When Covid first hit, my business suffered a huge loss of income.
After 4 months of feeling helpless watching my rent and bills pile up, I knew relying solely on my husband’s paycheck was not going to work. I had to start finding real solutions to get more money fast.

In July 2020 a friend suggested that I find out if I could get government grants. Being an author, research is in my bones so I rose to the challenge. An online search under grants, led me to YouTube where I discovered free money expert, Matthew Lesko and his work. Matthew is a New York Times best selling author and expert on grants with 40+ years experience.

As soon as I saw Matthew’s first video I remembered that in the 90’s I used to purchase his books and watch him on TV. As I watched the video, I was astounded by the quality of his information. He was so generous and provided so many resources.

Through my company, The Juicy Woman, I'm a women's empowerment coach and author. As an abuse survivor and proud New Yorker, I'm a fierce warrior and advocate for marginalized people, always on the hunt seeking to improve myself and enrich the lives of others. I work with organizations that pay me to create programs teaching their clients how to manage their stress and deal with challenges so they can rise above adversity.

Watching that first grants video, I saw a solution for myself and others. That day marked the beginning of my self-taught grant education. I credit Matthew Lesko with teaching me how to successfully get over $45K in grants and later encouraging me to use my system to help others get over $31K in grants. Matthew also encouraged me to start my Grants Made Easy with Andrea Amador Facebook group where I teach over 1000 people how to get grants.

In the process of doing research for my recently released book, “Grants Made Easy: Get Money for Yourself, Your Family & Your Business, I learned where to find food pantries. I had watched several videos of Matthew’s where he discussed food pantries and many other food services available to help people.

But to be brutally honest I was far too ashamed to risk going to a pantry because I was terrified and ashamed of being judged by others, so for a long time I refused to actually go and get the food I needed.

Then one day I realized the reason I was becoming irritable and cranky was because I was so desperately hungry.

I’m a vegetarian and I don’t eat meat. I need fresh fruit, vegetables and grains to stay healthy.
I remember one night I kept opening and closing my sister-in-law, Lourdes’ refrigerator hoping to see an apple, a banana, a head of lettuce or a cucumber. But every time I peered into the fridge, all I saw were animal products; meat, bacon, sausage, liver, pork chops, milk, eggs and cheese.

I adore Lourdes’ rice and beans, and I eat a plateful every chance I get. But that night looking into her fridge and seeing only a sea of meat and animal products made my stomach twist and burn with hunger.

Perhaps worse than the hunger pangs in my belly was the stabbing sensation of shame I felt in my heart. Between losing my job and my landlord refusing to renew my lease, I was so mortified that I kept my head down, avoiding eye contact.

I felt disgraced beyond belief being in such an awful situation, dragging my poor son into my mess. It was terrible not being able to afford to buy food and having to rely on the kindness of my family.

Each time my sister-in-law, Lourdes asked me if I wanted anything from the grocery store, I avoided her gaze and politely declined her invitation. I didn’t feel like I had the right to ask her for anything. I knew that our presence had stretched her so thin and I couldn’t imagine taking further advantage of her extraordinary kindness and generosity.

I was well aware that the cost of buying food at my local C-Town supermarket had become ridiculous. One day I saw an avocado, no bigger than the size of my closed fist. It was priced at $8.

To reduce expenses, I had been buying pasta with sauce or other types of grains in the supermarket because they were the least expensive option. But my body was starting to rebel. With all that starch in my system, I was getting very lethargic and incredibly uncomfortable.

Walking out of C Town with yet another box of pasta and jar of sauce, I knew I had to bust out of my false pride and find food that I could eat. My cravings were driving me crazy.

As a coach, I knew my pride and shame was keeping me stuck. I had to get a handle on my emotions and transform those feelings so I could motivate myself. My go-to method for
self-calming and changing perspective is Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT. After a few minutes of tapping, the shame I felt was gone, replaced by a sense of anticipation and curiosity. I was actually looking forward to going to the pantry.

The next day at the library, while using my laptop, I went to the site FindHelp.org. That is a local site that has thousands of resources for food, rent, clothing, housing, health care and so much more.

I clicked on the tab, labeled Food. In the search box, I put in my zip code and the site populated with listings of several local food pantries near me. I took note of the addresses and the different distribution days.

For each of the entries, there was an email listed in the resource section, a phone number and a link to a website. I checked the locations and found a pantry with the next day access as their distribution day. I sent an email asking if my son and I could come the following day to get food.

Alianza Dominicana was the first pantry on my list. Like many food pantries it is under the leadership of Catholic Charities. Catholic Charities is a national network of charities devoted to helping women and children.

I have a special fondness for Catholic Charities. It was through a local branch of Catholic Charities in Poughkeepsie, New York that I was approved to receive my first rent relief grant for $1800. When I was approved to receive rental assistance from Catholic Charities, they sent the $1800 check to my landlord to pay for a month of our back rent.

Rosa, my case worker at Catholic Charities sent me an email inviting Angel and I to come to their local office and pick up a $250 cash card. The weather had turned really cold and we didn’t have the cash on hand to pay for oil. Thanks to Catholic Charities generous cash card, that money went to help my family purchase 239 gallons of oil for our boiler.

Catholic Charities (CC) is a huge safety net organization. CC is the fifth largest charity in the United States. The organization serves millions of people a year, regardless of their religious, social, or economic backgrounds. In 2019, 12 million people were served at more than 2600 locations. Next to the federal government, Catholic Charities is the largest US social-safety-net provider.

Determined to get food that I could eat, I loaded up Lourdes’ shopping cart, with several reusable shopping bags and made the 1 mile trek to the pantry and got on line. It was a lovely day in early October 2022 in New York City and I was excited to be getting food.

My son and I both had our IDs. I thought it was better for us to stand on line separately, standing one behind the other, rather than together so that we could get double the amount of food.
When it was our turn to get food, a volunteer checked our IDs, and gave us a hand written card with a stamped date showing our next food pantry pick up day was a month away.

We went into the pantry and were each given a closed bag of items. There were several other pre-packaged foods and we placed it all in our shopping cart.

After the food was distributed and I unwrapped the bags, I got a chance to see what we had received. I was thrilled to know that we each got a 5 pound bag of potatoes, a 3 pound bag of onions, several carrots, a large bag of oats, a couple pounds of pasta, pasta sauce, tomato sauce, a large bag of rice, cans of beans, sardines, tuna fish, canned fruit and a few other pantry staples.

When we went back the following month in November, I was told to expect a large haul for Thanksgiving. In addition to all the items from the previous month, each of us was given a chicken, a large bag of frozen peaches, sweet potatoes, a bag of tortillas and several other holiday type food items. Our shopping cart was full to bursting.

As I began learning more about the pantries and finding out about the food they distributed, I realized I could go to several pantry locations by staggering the dates and places.

Many pantries distributed food on a weekly basis, or several times a week and others were only once a month. But as long as you did not exceed their restrictions, you could go to as many pantries and locations as you wanted.

To find local food services like pantries in your neighborhood, visit the site FindHelp.org
My search led me to find City Harvest, a food rescue organization that brings fresh fruit, vegetables, baked goods, meat and produce through community partnerships with restaurants and large chains like Trader Joes and other well known supermarkets in New York.

In Part 2 of this series, I’ll share more about City Harvest, a huge food rescue organization in NYC that provides over a billion pounds of unused fresh food from restaurants and supermarkets to hungry New Yorkers. Stay tuned for more.