One thousand families will be getting boxes of dairy items and locally grown fruits and vegetables Tuesday courtesy of New York State's Nourish New York program, which provides $25 million to food banks across the state for food distribution events like the one happening at the New York State Fairgrounds
Central New York Food Bank spokeswoman Lynn Hy said the giveaway will augment current programs that are meeting an unprecedented need at the Food Bank.
"A typical month for us pre-COVID would be 1.4-1.5 million pounds per month range. And now in April we are in the two million pound range, and we're expecting to remain in that level for some time now."
The Food Bank of CNY is planning more distribution events over the next few weeks,
"We're looking as early as next week to have additional distributions, with potentially six additional counties just next week," said Hy.
Pre-registration is required for these events, and people must meet income guidelines.
