Transcript: Mayor Adams Hosts Ceremony Honoring New York City’s Hunger Heroes

March 14, 2023

Kate Mackenzie, Executive Director, Mayor’s Office of Food Policy: Good morning and welcome. We are here today to celebrate our Hunger Heroes. My name is Kate Mackenzie. I'm the executive director of the Mayor's Office of Food Policy. These heroes behind me don't just feed our children, they nourish them. They nourish them with delicious plant-powered foods and make sure that every student comes to school and lasts through their school day, fueled with the nutrition and ability to get through their days. But what's also really important is these workers have families of their own. They don't just feed our families, but they're feeding their children, their parents, their own families in addition to this.

In a value of the labor that these professionals are putting in, the Office of Food and Nutrition Services provides training — provides training to make sure that these new recipes, these extraordinary helpful recipes are here for our students and we're able to make sure that we develop healthy habits from an early age. This is food policy. This is comprehensive food policy that looks at our entire food system. There is no better champion for food policy in this city right now than Mayor Eric Adams. I'm pleased to introduce Mayor Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you so much, Kate. And our Hunger Heroes behind us often state that people, when they think of this administration, they think of my role in law enforcement and that is going to be my legacy. I challenge that. I believe my legacy is going to be about health. It's about how do we finally take the challenging conversations on the role that diet plays on our overall health, not only our physical health, but our mental health. I'm happy to be here with the chancellor today. No matter how busy our schedules may be, acknowledging our Hunger Heroes is something that we wanted to be a part of, and we did not want to hand this off to a team member or one of our staffers. This is something that we want to emphasize of the importance of not only making sure our children are academically smart, but nutritionally balanced and healthy.

Every day the role of the Hunger Heroes who are behind me, they carry this out. My mom was a food service worker. She worked in [inaudible] Daycare Center. She prepared the foods every day for those children. Not only did she give them something that was tasty, but she also brought her energy and her love, her spirit. These food service workers behind me, they are putting that love in their children every day. I want to just really thank Kate. She was born for this job. She brings all of that energy there, as well as of just giving thanks also to Rachel and her team at No Kid Hungry. It is so unfortunate that in a country with just an abundance of resources that many of our children do go hungry. It's something that we must acknowledge.

It's not only caloric consumption. This is what I keep sharing to people. A full belly is not a full nutritional balanced meal. It's more than stating that we are giving our children a full stomach. That is not what we are looking for. That is planned on the margins and it's not what we want to accomplish. I want to be clear that March 14th marks the third anniversary of the first Covid death that was reported in the city. When we talk about building the immune system, part of our battle of fighting Covid, was to make sure that we had a well-balanced nutritional meal throughout the city. So much has changed, but many things cannot remain the same. Giving people the right food and the right balanced meal is something that we have a role in carrying out as the chancellor of one of the nation's largest school systems.

It is imperative that the chancellor is bringing that energy to the city every day. When you think about the fact that one in four children in our city might experience hunger this year. When you hear that you should allow that to sink in, one in four children, the potentiality that they are going to experience hunger in this city is something we are fighting again. Our cooks, our food service workers have delivered for our children day in and day out, we are proud that as DC 37 members, the same union that my mom was a member of, they continue the same spirited energy that she brought. It's not only about food that they bring. It's going above and beyond with an extra garnish of a smile. That child sees a food service worker in the cafeteria or even on their way.

They know each one of the children, they know what they like, they know what they dislike, they know who wants an extra portion of something, who they have to remind, "Don't forget to eat your veggies." They know these children throughout the year, and we are happy just to be here today, because they created a nurturing environment. Our acknowledgement of them today has created an environment that we know what they do. I want to just really continue to say that this is a national crisis that we must face. As a member of the Mayor's Alliance to End Child Hunger, this is something on the forefront of my mind on how we could do it correctly. To the Hunger Heroes, we recognize you, we thank you. In the spirit of my mom, continue to do the great things that you're doing. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Mackenzie: Thank you, mayor. I'm so proud of the workers behind me, but I am also really proud to send my two kids to public school. This is where they have their breakfast and their lunch. There is also no better leader of our public schools right now than someone that clearly understands the connection of food to the success of the day, and that is Chancellor Banks.

Chancellor David Banks, Department of Education: Good to meet you. Good to meet you, all of you. Really, really. Thank you. Every single one of you, every single one of you. Good morning. I'm in full agreement with the mayor. His legacy will not be limited to simply public safety. If you believe that, that's just the easy way out. This mayor's legacy will absolutely be tied to literacy and to health. We talk about bright starts and bold futures. Bright starts is about the work that we do for young people every single day to ensure that they can read. In fact, the mayor has for years been talking about this, 65 percent of Black and brown children don't read on grade level, and what a shame that is. We are working to turn that around, and we are going to turn that around. He talks about both futures, career pathways, opportunities for young people when they leave our schools. That is the theme that we focus on, all that we do in our schools each and every day.

You can't do any of that if kids come to school hungry, if kids don't get a good nutritious meal while they're in school. Last year when I was here and I heard the mayor talk about his mother, and I've heard him say it on many occasions, and I felt bad, because when I left this press conference last year, as we honored our Hunger Heroes, there was something that I actually left unsaid. I read the script that was prepared by my office, but what was not in that script was the story of my own grandmother, my Nana, my mother's mother, who had eight children and countless grandchildren and poured so much love into every single one of us. She was a food service worker for over 30 years at PS 305 in Brooklyn. She fed her family, and she loved her family. But it's so interesting when I talk to my brothers and I talk to my cousins and we talk about Nana and each one of us has the same story because we all thought we were the most special person to her. Then we realized that it went well beyond our family.

Nana would walk in the neighborhood and kids would run up to her and just thank Ms. English, "Thank you, Ms. English. Thank you, miss." We were like, "How do they know our Nana?" These were the children that she was feeding. It wasn't just distributing food. It was giving love and making sure that they were okay. That's what we'd talk about. School food workers and school food and being in the cafeteria in the school has had a bad rap for many, many years where people say all kinds of negative things about school lunch. But every time I visit a school, I try and make sure that I go and I see the food service workers, because I know how hard they work. I know the love that they give to those kids each and every day, and I know just how valuable the cafeteria experience is, because it's not simply just about the food. It's also about the camaraderie and the experience that we create.

All these people here, whether they work in our schools or they're in the warehouses that make sure that we get the food and the various managers, they are all part of this ecosystem of love and support that allows our children to flourish and be all that they are supposed to be. That's why I'm just so thrilled to be here to celebrate this particular group of workers today, but they are representative of the thousands of food service workers all across our city, people who care deeply about what happens with young people. That's why I salute them and I thank them deeply on behalf of not just the mayor's mom, but my Nana as well and the countless nanas and moms who are all over the city who care deeply. That's why I say to each and every one of them, "Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you."

Mackenzie: Not many people realize that breakfast and lunch in New York City is completely free, no questions asked, completely free in an effort to make sure that all kids can come in and enjoy these healthy meals. There are few advocates stronger than Rachel Sabella from No Kid Hungry who makes sure that breakfast, that lunch, is able to be consumed by as many kids as possible. She's part of the team that's pushing on Albany right now to look at our example in New York City to make sure that universal meals can be available to all New York children. Rachel, thank you and welcome.

Rachel Sabella, Director, No Kid Hungry New York: Thank you. I'm Rachel Sabella, the director of No Kid Hungry New York. We advocate for the policies and programs that fight child hunger and poverty, and support schools and community organizations across the state. This celebration has become my favorite day of the year. Thank you, Mayor Adams. One of the first members of our Mayor's Alliance to End Childhood Hunger for hosting and honoring our Hunger Heroes today with Chancellor Banks, Director Mackenzie and Vice President Nesbitt. As a New Yorker, this is personal to me. But like the chancellor and the mayor, I have a very personal connection to this. My grandmother was a cafeteria manager at PS 312 in Brooklyn for over 30 years. As everyone here says, I know the love and concern that she put into her food and her students, and I feel that warmth every time I go into a school cafeteria and meet one of these heroes, they also always make me cry when I visit one of those schools. This is extra personal.

These 35 amazing individuals represent more than 8,000 staff members from the Office of Food and Nutrition Services who have gone above and beyond to provide all New York City Public School students with good, nutritious meals. Kitchens are open during the school year, during holiday breaks, throughout the summer, and these staff members are there feeding children with a smile. Kids can't succeed without healthy meals in schools, at home, and in the summer. Well-nourished students grow up stronger and help make this city thrive. No Kid Hungry is grateful for the partnership and leadership shown by the entire Adams Administration in the battle against child hunger. From protecting SNAP to increasing access to healthy meals in schools, we're in this together. Thank you for being here today, and most especially, thank you to our Hunger Heroes.

Mackenzie: I really like to cook too, but I have to say the other day my daughter came to me and she's like, "Mom, please don't ever make this again because there are no better dumplings than the dumplings I get at school." I don't know what they're doing with the dumplings, but it's working, I have to say. I also know that we have another cook with us, former cook with us, and that is David Nesbitt, Donald Nesbitt, excuse me. But because you come from this experience, you know this Donald, and so many of our workers here are members of DC 37 and Local 372, and I just really value your experience, your time that you're spending here with us and you bring that to your job as with your union right now. Thank you.

Donald Nesbitt, Executive Vice President, Local 372: Good morning.

Audience: Good morning.

Nesbitt: As the chancellor said, my main focus, I'll be really brief and my main focus is to say thank you to the workers today. I stand here with my colleagues, and this is an honor. I look at faces here of people who I worked in a school kitchen with. I started in District 32 in PS 299 in the year 1998. At the end of this month, that's 25 years of city service. This is truly an honor. I also wear this pin in Women's “Herstory” Month of Michelle Obama, because when we talk about some of the hunger crises within the country, the First Lady actually stood up and said, "We needed to make some changes in healthy eating." That challenge, I can remember being in a kitchen, and it was a change for us, but we met that challenge like every other challenge. There were critics who called and wanted the unions to be an advocate against Mayor Adams on healthy eating.

We pushed back at that notion to say, it is silly for us to say that healthy eating is not something that we should do. We are going to be a supporter that, guess what, a statement that I made was our school food staff would be the first ones to get the challenges out of the way and things done for our students. Every day they do this job and they do it because students and children are 100 percent of all of our future. Lastly, with this, during the pandemic, workers like the ones being saluted here today called the union and just said, "We want to thank you. The money is nice, but we would really appreciate it. Thank you." Along with the collapse at 7 pm, and Mayor Adams has said, "Not only going to thank you, but I'm also going to salute you here." That just says something to the leadership in this administration.

Thank you, Mayor Adams. Thank you to all of the workers and the work that you do. Thank you for feeding even my children. My children who are attending schools now, they appreciate the work that you do every day. Thank you, all.

Mackenzie: Thank you, Donald, for your words. Also want to recognize Local 300 that represents more than 1,200 active members with 14 different titles working in city agencies, including the Department of Education. I also want to thank and acknowledge James Golden, president of Local 300 and Joe Key, vice president of Local 300. With that, thank you for joining us. Thank you for being here and paying tribute to our Hunger Heroes.

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