Stop & Shop Donates 1,000 Turkeys to Feeding Westchester

Turkeys donated by Stop & Shop are loaded into a Feeding Westchester truck in White Plains as part of Stop & Shop's Turkey Express program

This Veterans Day, Stop & Shop’s Turkey Express program donated 1,000 Thanksgiving Turkeys to Feeding Westchester at the Stop & Shop in White Plains.

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are twice as likely to be food insecure compared with the general population.

A 2018 study reports that 1.5 million veterans in the United States lived in a household that relied completely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to get food.

According to the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, in New York State, 59,000 veterans rely on SNAP benefits to feed themselves and their families — a number that has only worsened due to the adverse impacts of COVID-19.

Current law limits the availability of SNAP benefits to military families, with one of the results being that approximately 9 percent of active duty service members – roughly 90,000 families – have sought charitable food assistance during the past year.

• Feeding Westchester has distributed nearly 16.5 million pounds of food, or 13.8 million meals, through its partners and programs in the last year compared to 10.1 million pounds in 2019
• Due to COVID-19 Feeding Westchester distributed 123% more food from than the same time period last year.
• Feeding Westchester’s network of more than 300 partner agencies and programs throughout the county are serving more than 300,000 residents who are hungry each month—more than twice as many as pre-COVID-19

• Many senior citizens served by Feeding Westchester rely on help from their families. Because of the pandemic, many seniors will be spending the holidays alone and will not be able to put food on the table through the winter months

Stop & Shop’s Turkey Express program will deliver more than 21, 500 turkeys to hunger relief organizations in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Jersey this holiday season.