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Malliotakis organizes Goya food drive following boycott calls - SILive.com

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Malliotakis organizes Goya food drive following boycott calls - SILive.com

Malliotakis organizes Goya food drive following boycott calls - SILive.com

Posted: 11 Jul 2020 11:42 AM PDT

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-East Shore/South Brooklyn) is organizing a Goya food drive for Staten Island and South Brooklyn food pantries following calls to boycott the Latino food company after its CEO Robert Unanue praised President Donald Trump.

Unanue came under fire after he said the country was "truly blessed" to have a leader like Trump when he appeared alongside the president during a White House visit.

The Island's GOP congressional candidate also took aim at New York City Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who spoke out against Unanue in a tweet suggesting her support for a boycott of the company.

The hashtag #Goyaway began trending on social media after Unanue's remarks. Unanue called the boycott a "suppression of speech" and pointed out he had also been invited to the White House by former President Barack Obama during Hispanic Heritage Month.

"Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's attempt to launch a boycott is symptomatic of the radical left's attempts to bully and intimidate those who hold opposing views. The fact that her actions are aimed at an 84-year-old Hispanic family-owned business over political differences is shameful," Malliotakis said. "Attempts to silence opposing views are a trademark of AOC's brand of socialism and are one of the reasons my mother fled Communist Cuba."

"On Friday night, I made Goya frijoles in honor of my mother, abuela (grandmother) and freedom loving Americans. Today, I am announcing my Goya canned food drive in the same spirit as Goya Foods, which has generously donated millions of pounds of food to people in our nation and around the world," Malliotakis continued.

Ocasio-Cortez's office could not immediately be reached for comment.

Goya Foods is a leading Latino food producer and describes itself as the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the country.

Goya food donations can be sent to Malliotakis' campaign headquarters at 2300 Richmond Road, Staten Island NY 10306 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Malliotakis and volunteers will then deliver food to local pantries.

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By Praising Trump, Goya President Angers His Core Latino Market - The New York Times

Posted: 10 Jul 2020 06:48 PM PDT

When Lina Baez-Rosario moved to the United States as a young girl, she missed her home in the Dominican Republic. Her parents made sure to cook with familiar flavors, to keep memories alive.

As an adult, the 42-year-old special education kindergarten teacher, who lives in the Inwood area of Manhattan, found those same tastes through the same Goya Foods products.

"Goya is the one product that I know that my family used, that my mom still uses," Ms. Baez-Rosario said, "because it's the one that resembles home to them."

On Thursday, though, she decided she would not be buying Goya products again after the company's president, Robert Unanue, praised President Trump during a visit to the White House.

Mr. Unanue compared the president to his grandfather, an immigrant from Spain who founded the food company in 1936. "We're all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump," Mr. Unanue said.

After Mr. Unanue's comments, consumers have been dumping out ingredients and calling for a boycott on social media with the hashtags #BoycottGoya, #GoyaFoods and #Goyaway. Prominent Latino politicians like Julián Castro, the former presidential candidate and secretary of housing and urban development, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez weighed in as well.

"If we are the main source of income, if you are targeting us and you are marketing toward us, then your responsibility is to every Latino person, at least in the United States," Ms. Baez-Rosario said.

In an era of activist shopping, when consumers are ever more vocal about tying their purchasing power to their politics, Mr. Unanue's comments run the risk of alienating his company's core market.

"There are people out there that say they support the immigrant community, but at the end, money is stronger," said Gonzalo Guzmán, 38, the head chef and a partner at Nopalito, a Mexican restaurant in San Francisco. "At the end, it's always that. It's always money."

A Goya representative did not reply to specific questions about the controversy. But in a news release, the company pointed out that it has donated 1 million cans of chickpeas and 1 million pounds of other products to food banks across the nation. "We are committed to our country and the need to give back because it is the right thing to do," said Mr. Unanue in the release.

Goya is the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United States, and millions of Latinos have grown up with Goya beans and spice blends, tasting their childhoods in the adobo and sazón.

But even so, the multibillion-dollar company, headquartered in New Jersey, can seem as corporate and faceless as any multinational food outfit.

"It's really not a for-us by-us product," said Yadira Garcia, 36, a founder and the executive chef of Happy Healthy Latina, which uses culturally relevant cooking and gardening to help underserved communities eat healthier. "It's just marketed to us like it is."

"You can't just tell a part of our story and exalt a part of our story, and also profit off our pain and our joys, but not really truly be inclusive in our community," Ms. Garcia continued, before criticizing the company's leadership for a lack of diversity. "You can take our money, but we don't have a seat at their table."

Mr. Unanue visited the White House on Thursday to celebrate the president's signing of an executive order intending to improve Hispanic Americans' access to educational and economic opportunities. And on Friday, Mr. Unanue stood by his words during an appearance on the television program "Fox & Friends."

"I'm not apologizing for saying — and especially when you're called by the president of the United States — you're going to say, 'No, I'm sorry, I'm busy. No thank you'?" he said. "I didn't say that to the Obamas, and I didn't say that to President Trump."

On Friday evening, President Trump tweeted his support of Goya, after a day of #BuyGoya tweets from his supporters fighting back against the boycott.

The prominent chef José Andrés said that Mr. Unanue could have met with the president and taken a more moderate tone, instead of sparking the all-out social media war that has raged since Thursday afternoon.

"You can go and say: 'Thank you for supporting the Latino community,'" Mr. Andres said in an interview. "But then to go and say you are a great leader? A great leader for whom?"

Mr. Andrés said he respects the Unanue family, and has worked with them in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, but called the praise of President Trump "over the top."

"Really? Four months before elections? When he wants to send 1 million DACA children back to their countries?" said Mr. Andrés, referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. "When he is caging children? When he is allowing militias to patrol the border?"

Latinos are projected to make up the largest nonwhite ethnic voting bloc in the 2020 election. In the 2018 midterm elections, Latinos voted Democratic by a more than two-to-one ratio, according to the Pew Research Center.

To Gustavo Arellano, the author of "Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America" and a reporter for The Los Angeles Times, Mr. Unanue's comments were consistent with those of a business owner looking for tax breaks, rather than a leader supporting his community.

"It's a betrayal for these consumers," he said. "They see Trump as the antithesis of Latinos, in fact, as the enemy."

Mr. Unanue's statement comes during the middle of a pandemic that has disproportionately affected Latino communities, while benefiting companies like Goya, whose pantry products, like canned beans, flew off grocery shelves.

For Mr. Arellano, 41, the fact that Goya is a food brand makes it even more painful for Latino cooks.

"To see something that represents nurture and community and family and most importantly the kitchen?" he said. "That's where it's a stab in the heart. Or the stomach."

Adán Medrano, 71, is a chef and the author of "Don't Count the Tortillas: The Art of Texas Mexican Cooking," a cookbook about the Mexican food of Texas. He said Goya's food donations are not enough.

"Goya has shown that by thinking and saying that Trump is a great man, it has become disconnected from the heartbeat of the Latinx community, and particularly with our food, which has been so important to our resistance," he said.

In standardizing a product line, Goya has overlooked the nuances of different Hispanic cultures, said Eric Rivera, 38, the chef and owner of Addo in Seattle, a restaurant and food company that sells Latin American food and ingredients that it ships nationwide.

"What people do is put a blanket statement over what Latin American cooking is, and they call it Caribbean food and they expect it all to be the same," said Mr. Rivera, who is of Puerto Rican descent. "My problem, always, with Goya was that they basically homogenized all the flavors."

Mr. Rivera and other chefs have lines of spice blends, alternatives to the Goya brand. Ms. Garcia, of Happy Healthy Latina, is developing new products with Loisa, a New York-based Latin American food company in which she is a partner.

"They just colonized our culture to benefit themselves," Mr. Rivera said, referencing the Unanue family heritage. "They literally just like, Christopher Columbus-ed us."

Alain Delaqueriere contributed research.

A Portland soup kitchen will close and deliver food directly to vulnerable people on the streets - Bangor Daily News

Posted: 10 Jul 2020 10:00 PM PDT

The BDN is making the most crucial coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and its economic impact in Maine free for all readers. Click here for all coronavirus stories and here for the free collection. You can join others committed to safeguarding this vital public service by purchasing a subscription or donating directly to the newsroom.

PORTLAND, Maine — Preble Street Resource Center, one of the largest social service agencies in Maine, will shut down its to-go soup kitchen on Monday and shift to a mobile food distribution program that "brings food to people where they are."

The initiative aims to provide basic food needs and dissuade crowds from gathering at its Bayside site during the pandemic, according to Ali Lovejoy, a program director at Preble Street.

Instead, caseworkers from Preble Street, in collaboration with workers from other agencies, will distribute food twice a day at nine different locations throughout the city to people experiencing homelessness.

Roughly a dozen COVID-19 cases have been linked to people who have stayed at city and nonprofit shelters since the pandemic reached Maine, a rate of contagion that many who work in the field fear could spike as shelter becomes more of a necessity once summer ends.

Preble Street closed its dining room in late March when COVID-19 hit Portland, distributing meals through its back door at 252 Oxford St. and shifting resources to help staff a 50-bed temporary shelter at University of Southern Maine's Sullivan Gym.

Some staff who have worked there are heading the agency's street outreach collaborative. Others will be relocated to positions within the agency as clients staying at Sullivan Gym move this week to city-operated shelters at the Portland Expo Building and Oxford Street Shelter.

Lovejoy hopes the mobile street outreach collaborative can streamline efforts to secure housing and emergency shelter for more people. Preble Street looked to food distribution models in Boston and elsewhere and consulted with other agencies that work with unsheltered populations to ensure that people don't fall through the cracks.

Preble Street expects its map of food distribution site s might shift as the project gets underway.

"We've done as much theoretical running through as we can, but some things we won't know until we're out there," Lovejoy said.

The program will be costlier to implement than the single-distribution site, largely due to rising food costs since the outset of the pandemic. The agency has served a record number of meals since the pandemic began, Lovejoy said.

Preble Street will continue to operate its food pantry, where people can pick up boxes of meat, potatoes, vegetables and dry goods from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. five days a week. Prepared meals also will still be distributed daily to area shelters and the YMCA.

One Love Tennis hosts pop-up food drive - WWAY NewsChannel 3

Posted: 11 Jul 2020 11:59 AM PDT

As volunteers put more food out for display, people come by and pick up items. (Photo: Monique Robinson/WWAY)

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — One Love Tennis put their mission to action this weekend by spreading love and helping others with a pop-up food distribution at the historic Orange Street property.

The group partnered with Grace Abounds for the food distribution.

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Founder Lenny Simpson says this is a part of the One Love Relief Assistance Program.

He says this program was started during the pandemic to meet the needs of the community. Aside from food, the program has distributed more than 850 face masks to people in the community. Saturday's food drive is the first of many to come, according to Simpson.

"We don't want any kid to go hungry or any parent to go hungry," Simpson said. "We want them to have a good steady, nutritional diet, so that they can live better."

Simpson says they plan to make this a monthly activity.

Visit their website here for more details.

TDHS: Deadline to apply for pandemic food assistance extended to July 27 - WBIR.com

Posted: 11 Jul 2020 01:09 PM PDT

The Tennessee Department of Human Services said this is the second time they extended the application deadline.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Families who need help feeding children can now apply for pandemic food assistance until July 27, 4:30 p.m. central time. This is the second time the Tennessee Department of Human Services extended the deadline.

Officials said the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer, or P-EBT program, is designed to replace meals lost during the months of March, April and May due to COVID-19 school closures. It gives parents of eligible children $5.70 in food benefits per child for each day the child qualifies.

Children must receive free or reduced meals at school, or attend a "Community Eligibility Provision" school to be eligible for the program. However, families who receive SNAP or TANF benefits do not need to apply, since P-EBT benefits are automatically applied to their EBT cards.

Families who don't receive SNAP or TANF benefits will receive a P-EBT card in the mail after being approved, which can be used to buy food at any organization that accepts EBT. They can also buy food online through Amazon and Walmart.

Officials said that more than 70,000 children will be approved for P-EBT benefits over the coming week. Around 380,000 children across Tennessee have already received benefits from the program.

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"We extended the application deadline a second time to ensure every family who qualifies for these benefits is aware of the opportunity and has plenty of time to apply," TDHS Commissioner Danielle W. Barnes said. "Providing parents and children with the resources they need now will help build a thriving Tennessee when the COVID-19 pandemic ends."

Anyone who needs help completing a P-EBT application, or who has questions, can call the TDHS hotline at 1 (833) 496-0661.

RELATED: Deadline to sign up for P-EBT card moved to July

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