(BROOME COUNTY, NY) – During Hunger Action Month, Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo joined officials at the Community Hunger Outreach Warehouse (CHOW) to announce that she secured a $50,000 Assembly grant to support their mission.

The announcement was made ahead of the upcoming CHOW Hunger Walk, an annual event to raise funds to support CHOW’s operations. It also spreads awareness regarding the prevalence of food insecurity in our community. The 43^rd annual Hunger Walk will take place on Saturday, September 20th from 12-3pm at the Oakdale Commons and will feature live music, raffles, face painting, and more.

CHOW is a network of food pantries within Broome County dedicated to making emergency food available to the community. Their most recent statistics show CHOW recovering 2.66M pounds of food and distributing 2.72M meals annually. Assembly grant funds, used for transportation and storage of recovered food, helped offset the loss of funding from the Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP).

Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo said, “I cannot thank CHOW enough for the work they do on a daily basis to address food insecurity. I’m very glad I was able to secure an Assembly grant to help them continue to meet this ongoing need in our community. I hope everyone gets the chance to stop by the Hunger Walk this weekend to show their support.”

Les Aylesworth, Director of CHOW, said, “We are incredibly grateful for the support Assemblywoman Lupardo has shown CHOW over the years. She sees how important feeding our most vulnerable neighbors is and has stepped up many times to secure essential funding from New York State to keep our food recovery program going. Because of good partners like her, we are able to continue doing the good work we do of ensuring those who struggle with food insecurity get the nutrition they need.”