Volunteers helping vegans cope with crisis
They’re putting a vegan twist on feeding the hungry.
Michelle Carrera and her team of volunteers at Chilis on Wheels are working harder than ever to deliver free, nutritious meals and groceries devoid of animal products to New Yorkers struggling amid the pandemic.
“Every week, the number of messages we receive doubles,” she said of requests for groceries. “Most of the people who request groceries are people who were working and are now not working.”
To meet the surge in demand, Carrera and her team are spending long hours scouring grocery stores for vegan products like tomato sauce, rice, beans, soy milk and applesauce, often making extra trips when store shelves are depleted.
She and other volunteers then bundle the goods into packages that can feed a family of six for about a week. They’re now making about 100 deliveries per week, Carrera said.
The organizer noted many New Yorkers newly eligible for food stamps have yet to get their first benefits.
“A lot of people are caught in that space of desperation before unemployment [benefits] come in,” she said. “They’re unable to get groceries.”
Chilis on Wheels delivered groceries to Clarizza Rodriguez and her grown daughter in Bushwick, Brooklyn, earlier this month. Rodriguez had recently gotten her hours as a home assistant severely cut, while daughter
Ashley Cabrera lost her job at a bakery.
“She’s always been like a giver, so for people to come and do the same thing back to her, it feels like a reward,” Cabrera said of her mom. “I’m really grateful” for the groceries, she added.
Cabrera said neither of them is a vegan, but “we’re good with whatever we have.”
About a third of the city’s food pantries closed after the start of the crisis, according to the Met Council on Jewish Poverty, one of the biggest charities in the city. Mayor de Blasio has responded with millions of dollars in new funding for the remaining pantries.
Carrera, who works as a freelance English-Spanish translator, is no stranger to food insecurity herself. She launched Chilis on Wheels in 2014 after periods of difficulty paying the bills.
“It’s near to me, the need for healthy food to be available to folks,” the Bushwick resident said. “When I started, there were no vegan soup kitchens in the city. There are health disparities in communities with low income due to the food that they eat.”
In recent years, new chapters of Chilis on Wheels have sprung up nationwide. In addition to deliveries, the grassroots group lives up to its name and dishes out plates of chili — when ingredients are available — once a week on the Lower East Side, Harlem and Sunnyside, Queens.
They serve up a simple yet tasty dish made of beans, vegetables, tomato sauce and other “natural ingredients,” Carrera said. Hot sauce is usually available on the side.
Chilis on Wheels also gives away free groceries at its popup stands. The group buys food through donated funds and receives donated goods from two vegan restaurants in Manhattan, Carrera said.
Many of the deliveries come through word of mouth, she explained. Carrera added that people can request food assistance through chilisonwheels.org or on the group’s social media pages. (The city has a map of hundreds of food pantries citywide and offers a signup service for deliveries at nyc.gov/GetFood.)
Since the outbreak started, about 50 people have newly volunteered for Chilis, Carrera said, bringing her group’s ranks to 100 dedicated individuals. They help get food, bag it, organize deliveries and make dropoffs around the city.
“That’s also how community is formed,” Carrera said. “We all come together with what we can offer. Together we can spread out and be stronger.
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