FOUNDER OF GRASSROOTS GROCERY
Lives In: Manhattan
Working Toward: Neighbors Helping Neighbors
Roughly 1.3 million residents of New York City struggle daily with food insecurity. While this is a grim reality that many of our neighbors face, Grassroots Grocery, a Bronx-based nonprofit dedicated to this issue, makes the process of battling food insecurity anything but.
Dan Zauderer, the nonprofit’s founder, says that the group’s weekly “Produce Parties” bring together people from all walks of life: “folks of all ages, families, single people, older people, younger people, professionals.” They gather every Saturday at 9am to unload a refrigerated truck filled with 12,000 to 15,000 pounds of food donated by local vendors, food that would otherwise go to waste. The volunteers divvy up the produce as music fills the air—think “Starships” by Nicki Minaj, “Lovely Day” by Bill Withers, and “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” by Pat Benatar. (“I think the ’80s songs are the most popular,” Dan says.)
When it comes to produce, redistributive food organizations typically focus on what are known as the “hard seven”: apples, carrots, green cabbage, onions, oranges, potatoes, and sweet potatoes—common fruits and vegetables that are nutritious, inexpensive, long lasting, and hardy enough to withstand rough handling. But because of their partnership with the Hunts Point Produce Market, Grassroots Grocery is able to distribute more perishable, less utilitarian produce—tender leafy greens, romaine lettuce, salad mix, arugula, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, mangoes, and avocados—pricier foods that might otherwise be out of reach for Grassroots Grocery’s recipients.
Once the food has been sorted and organized, volunteers transport it to upwards of 25 different communities across the city, where it is then distributed to between 1,300 and 1,500 households. Every week, thousands of New Yorkers who might otherwise be hungry benefit from Grassroots Grocery’s Produce Parties.
The inspiration for Grassroots Grocery came to Zauderer when he was teaching sixth-grade humanities at a Bronx charter school. One day he saw the grandmother of one of his students digging through the trash for cans and bottles to return for money to feed her family. Zauderer was so moved by this experience that in 2020, he started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for both food and educational materials for his students. Soon, that work turned into an effort to set up a community fridge, a project that ultimately led Zauderer to create Grassroots Grocery and devote himself to battling hunger full time.
By now, Zauderer has been at this work long enough that one of his former sixth grade students actually spent the summer volunteering with Grassroots Grocery. In the fall, she headed to Trinity College, Zauderer’s alma mater. “It’s just one of those full-circle moments,” Zauderer said.
Grassroots Grocery is now in a position to expand—to serve more families, bring together more people, and to hold even more, and bigger, Produce Parties. Zauderer hopes that by next year, and with the help of the organization’s “Deliver Double” campaign, they can “double the amount of produce that we can get through at a single Produce Party,” Zauderer says. His aim is to move around 25,000 to 30,000 pounds of food every weekend. To move all that food, they’ll need a lot more people. “We already have 5,000 people on a list of volunteers, but we want to grow that exponentially,” he said.
Once they have enough interested helpers, they hope to host another Produce Party somewhere else in NYC that will happen at the same time as the existing one. “We’ll rinse and repeat. We want to have dozens of Produce Parties popping around the city every Saturday. I hope that anywhere somebody lives, they’ll be able to find a Produce Party near them,” Zauderer said. “Our ambitions are very big.”
For now, you can party with Zauderer and hundreds of other people Saturdays at 9am at 1750 E. Gun Hill Road. Consider yourself personally invited, because, as Zauderer says: “We want to see everyone at the party!”
