History

County Harvest is a not-for-profit food rescue organization serving Westchester County, New York.  It was founded in October 2009 by Missy Palmisciano who, as a regular volunteer at her children's elementary school lunch program, was disturbed by all the good unused food being thrown away.  She realized that local soup kitchens could use the food and immediately thought of Community Service Associates (CSA), an organization she had helped before through her active participation with the Junior League of Pelham.  Prospect Hill Elementary School and the Pelham School district, protected by the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, generously agreed to allow Missy to take the food to CSA. 

Using her own time and resources, Missy began the process of collecting and distributing the excess food to CSA.  It was apparent from her first delivery that the soup kitchen was very much in need of this prepared food, which without County Harvest would go to waste or end up in the trash.  For several months, Missy acted alone but soon expanded the program with both new food donors and local food rescue volunteers.  After she found a variety of business owners willing to donate their excess food to County Harvest, she soon had more food than CSA could use.  She then added other Westchester agencies in need of food and recruited additional volunteers to help pick up and deliver.  With this expanded effort, County Harvest officially began in December 2009.

County Harvest currently rescues excess food from hotels, restaurants, caterers, supermarkets, wholesale clubs, farms, bagel shops, bakeries, beverage distributors and country clubs and delivers it to soup kitchens, food pantries and homeless shelters in Westchester County, New York.  The dedicated volunteers pick up excess food 7 days a week from the food donors and then immediately deliver it to one of the agencies in need. 


Board of Directors

Kristin Bischof, Food Rescue Run Schedule
Sue Childs, Finance
Jen Gilchrist, Volunteer Recruiting
Kit Meyer, Social Media Outreach
Elisa Owen, Food Donor & Agency Liaison
Missy Palmisciano, President
Mary Ann Provenzano, Food Rescue Reporting
Katie Stevens, Marketing
Erica Youngren, Volunteer Coordinator


Advisory Board

Barbara Bratone
Nick Childs
Martin Levine
James Palmisciano


County Harvest is always in need of partners and volunteers interested in helping feed Westchester's hungry.  Please contact us for more information on how you can help by emailing help@countyharvest.org.

County Harvest, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.