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NYCHA Now
Food distribution
COVID-19 November 2020 

Growing NYCHA Food Entrepreneurs

Michael Corwin

Recently, Brandi Covington, her partner Corey Whittenburg, and their team spent the day visiting three NYCHA developments in Brooklyn to deliver meals to residents experiencing gas outages. Their largest location was Gowanus Houses: they knocked on the doors of 252 apartments to deliver 712 meals. 

Ms. Covington and Mr. Whittenburg are the owners behind catering company Cooking with Corey, one of four businesses run by NYCHA residents participating in a program to provide meals to NYCHA residents experiencing gas outages. During September, the four businesses will deliver 7,000 individual warm meals to residents who opted in to receiving food. All residents eligible for the program were contacted and provided an opportunity to participate. 

“Residents will receive culturally appropriate and individually wrapped meals from vendors who are suffering from a great decline in their businesses because of COVID-19,” said Shanna Castillo, Director of NYCHA’s Office of Resident Economic Empowerment & Sustainability (REES). 

Pre-packaged meals prepared and delivered by Cooking with Corey.

The initiative is a partnership between NYCHA and GrowNYC, the largest environmental organization in NYC, which provides resources, education, and programs to help improve quality of life and create a healthier environment for the future.  

The entrepreneurs are graduates of the Food Business Pathways program (FBP), which provided free food business training to help NYCHA residents and NYCHA Section 8 voucher holders reach their dreams of starting or growing their own businesses. NYCHA REES manages the Business Pathways program and the partnership with GrowNYC. Ms. Covington is a Pomonok Houses resident who graduated from FBP in 2017. 

The other resident business owners are Cristiana Franco of Sabor Restaurant & Bakery; Cornel Robinson of Cornel’s Catering; and Niani Taylor of Munch Hours, along with resident Yulonda Ruiz. 

Ms. Covington and her team were responsible for 2,088 meals, which included chicken, rice and potatoes, and fresh vegetables like eggplant or string beans. In addition to Gowanus, Ms. Covington provided meals for Brooklyn residents with gas outages at Farragut, Glenwood, Nostrand, and Red Hook; Queens residents at Ravenswood, Queensbridge South, and Woodside; and Staten Island residents at South Beach and Todt Hill. 

NYCHA provides a hot plate to all residents affected by gas outages and regularly communicates with residents about the progress of restoration. Gas service interruptions and repairs involve multiple partners and steps, including shutting off the gas service, making necessary repairs, and inspections in order to safely restore service. NYCHA has also worked with resident associations, elected officials, and other partners to provide food packages and meals to affected residents. 

In addition to providing a resource for residents waiting for gas service repairs, this initiative supports NYCHA resident business owners and their employees. Ms. Covington said her business suffered due to the COVID-19 pandemic: “We were at a complete standstill for a while. We had a contract with a school and our contract has not been dissolved but we weren’t making any money because the school wasn’t open. Also, because we’ve been catering, a lot of the things that we had on our calendar were cancelled because it involved people meeting.” 

Though the business did have the opportunity through the Queens Borough President’s office to provide meals for essential workers, Ms. Covington said that when Cooking with Corey was at full capacity, it had approximately 23 employees, including chefs, cashiers, and delivery people.  

“This opportunity is great for us because it’s going to put some of our workers back to work and it’s going to put money in our pockets. We plan on going back to work when school opens, and now we’ll have some funds to get started back to work.” 

It took a lot of teamwork to make this program a success! Many thanks to the numerous REES, Family Partnerships and Community Development staff who supported this effort by phone banking, flyering and assisting with meal deliveries, including Shanmuga Jayakumar and Audrey Washington who co-managed this project for REES. NYCHA Resident Association leaders at participating developments also assisted with the coordination of the program. 

Recently, the NYC Taskforce on Racial Inclusion & Equity announced that it will scale this program with additional support from the City. This additional support will enable NYCHA entrepreneurs to provide residents with gas outages more meals, increasing the program to a total of 13,440 meals to be distributed. 

The Food and Catering Business Pathways programs have helped more than 300 NYCHA residents to start or grow their food businesses. These types of market access opportunities support residents’ building business capacity, enabling resident-owned food businesses to become more competitive in securing City contracts, participating in the City’s emergency feeding programs, and partnering with community-based organizations’ hunger programs.