When the pandemic caused food banks to close in March 2020, two soup kitchen volunteers, Mammad Mahmoodi and Sasha Allenby, borrowed a baker friend’s kitchen to cook hot meals for those in need. demand.
That has evolved into EV loves NYCa non-profit organization that serves 2,000 meals every Sunday from its headquarters in Sixth Street Community Center in Manhattan’s East Village.
The food is not typical kitchen soup. Each weekend, volunteers prepare dishes that reflect the chef’s cultural heritage.
The meals are then packed into cars, trucks, bicycles and backpacks for delivery to New Yorkers across all five counties. About 30 organizations, including aid groups, churches and mosques, help with the distribution.
Mr. Mahmoodi, 35, and Ms. Allenby, 49, who both keep their full-time jobs even though they spend 40 hours a week on EV Loves NYC, are also a couple. In March, they moved from the East Village to Bushwick, Brooklyn.
BEFORE THE PERFORMANCE Mammad Mahmoodi: I wake up at 7 and start checking my messages, making sure everything is in place, like the huge amount of rice we use. I had to leave before 7:30 to be able to get to the community center by 8:00, when the volunteers started arriving. I never eat breakfast. One of the volunteers usually comes in with a bag of bagels or something from a local coffee shop. Sasha Allenby: I make chocolate smoothies at home before going in. I got there around 9 o’clock.
DIFFERENT TASKS MM: On Sunday, we have three shifts. The first shift is pre-processing and chopping and cooking. That’s 10 people. The second shift was actually food distribution. That’s 15 people. The third shift is cleaning. It was only five people. Before everyone got to the kitchen at about 8:30, I was walking around helping with the setup. SA: When I get there, I’m mostly talking to the volunteers, making sure everyone’s okay on a personal level. Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve had 1,400 volunteers at our door. Among them, 30 to 40 keep coming back and deeply love the project. They are our core.
COST INCREASE MM: Over the past six months, inflation has really affected us. We buy everything wholesale, but it affects us radically. SA: Due to Mammad’s economic capacity, we prepared gourmet meals for 80 cents per person. The same meal is currently $2.20.
ALMOST SEAMLESS MM: Our first and foremost rule is that we create gourmet meals that everyone is excited about. We are food thieves. SA: It should be like a meal coming from Seamless. Similar impact.
CONTENT MM: At 11:30, when the first shift ended and the second shift started, we performed the shutdown. It’s where people gather to say, “Hey, what’s the point of this food? What are we doing? “
PREPARATION FOR BABY SA: Two to three times a month we have a volunteer DJ coming in for the second shift. DJ Tommy is our most frequent. When he walked in, the vibe in the kitchen was high. It really makes a difference. MM: It’s funny: When we have a DJ, efficiency and productivity skyrocket. SA: It makes people feel more connected.
FEMALE REGULATIONS SA: In the afternoon, people from the neighborhood stop by for food. I spend time alone with them, making sure I’m building a connection. A woman is a larger-than-life figure. She is a poet. Sometimes she would write poetry for us or dance for us. That’s kind of where it is. Everyone feels welcome when they come in and get a little love and a little connection. Poets usually have five or six meals. She doesn’t get any other hot meals during the week.
HOT EMPLOYEES MM: The food we have prepared is delivered to various organizations. But I would say that 400 to 500 of the 2,000 meals we make weekly will go to unauthorized residents. At about 5 o’clock, volunteers from two or three helping each other go to places that we know are open to many people, like Chinatown and Washington Square Park. The food comes in thermos bags, similar to what they pack pizza in, so it will be very hot for them.
LATE CASE SA: I’m there to clean up. I’m not particularly a neat freak, but I’m very conscious that the community center isn’t our space. We rented it, so I wanted to respect it and let it be better than what I found. MM: The last thing we do before closing is yell, “Is anyone here?” It started as a joke, but now it has become a tradition, like the end bell. It’s a large community center. We want to make sure that no one falls asleep under the bench. SA: Prepared food packages are lined up at the alley. Organizations come to receive it.
LET GO MM: We went home on the L train. Long live the L train. SA: At home, we collapsed. The labor and the number of people we have come into contact with as well as the volume of our hearts put into it makes us fall apart. MM: After taking a shower, I passed out. It was the deepest sleep ever.
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