The Lycée Français de New York is excited to host the second annual Lycée Cares event next week. In partnership with City Harvest, the New York-area nonprofit dedicated to feeding New Yorkers in need, the whole school community will be coming together to collect food during a food drive the week of November 26. On Saturday, December 1, we will pack all of the food into paper bags which have been lovingly decorated by our Primary students.
But what happens to the bags after they are packed with food? Let’s find out…
Last year at Lycée Cares, students and families packed 2,500 pounds of food into over 1,000 snack bags. After the event, City Harvest picked up all of the bags in one of their trucks. They have a fleet of 22 refrigerated trucks that are on the road seven days a week, picking up donated food from over 2,500 locations including farms, restaurants, cafes, and supermarkets. They deliver this food all over New York City, supplying hundreds of soup kitchens, food pantries, and other community food programs.
In our case, the snack bags we packed last year were delivered to Cabrini Immigrant Services, an organization on the Lower East Side that serves immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and their families. Along with running a food pantry that serves over 800 families each month, their work includes uniting separated families, providing legal and social aid, and working towards positive immigration reform. They also have a program that provides scholarships and support to low-income immigrant students who are pursuing higher education.
City Harvest delivers food every day based on needs throughout the city, so they don’t always know in advance where their trucks will be going each day. For that reason, we won’t know before our packing event where our food will be going, but after it is delivered City Harvest will let us know its final destination. One thing we already know is that our snack packs will be feeding lots of hungry people and brightening their holiday season. This year, the Lycée Cares committee plans to make the event bigger and better, so that we can serve even more people than last year. Our goal this year is to pack 2,000 bags!
Parent volunteers have also been working hard to bring the spirit of Lycée Cares into classrooms. The APL generously donated a children’s book on the topic of hunger, either Maddie’s Fridge or Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen depending on the grade, to each Maternelle and Primary Classroom. The Lycée Cares committee prepared age-appropriate discussion guides for teachers to use when reading the books to their classes. For Secondary students, the committee shared a list of videos and articles on hunger and homelessness to be shared in advisory groups. The goal is for students not only to participate in Lycée Cares, but to understand why it is so important to take the time to serve others.
Please join us at Lycée Cares on Saturday, December 1 from 10 am – 12 pm, and please consider donating to the Lycée Cares food drive. RSVP, sign up to donate, and find the Lycée Cares Amazon Wish List at www.lfny.org/lyceecares.
Watch our video from last year’s event:
About the Author :
May Bayer joined the Development team at the Lycée in 2017 as Assistant Manager of Events. Born and raised in Boston, she graduated from Colgate University and then began her career in development and special events at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston before moving to New York City. Outside of work, May enjoys riding her bike in Central Park, volunteering with her university’s alumni club, and exploring the city, especially its many museums and restaurants.