Good Food Works: Alan Finder Internship / Lower East Side Expansion

We are thrilled to announce we have reached our initial goal of $50,000! This will enable our expansion and the launch of the Alan A. Finder Internship. 

All gifts above and beyond this goal will allow us to underwrite the internship on an ongoing basis. We are humbled by and deeply thankful for your continued support!

--------------------------------------------------------

Beginning this spring and summer, we’ll expand our innovative Mobile Market program to additional neighborhoods across New York City, starting with the Lower East Side, while introducing new career opportunities for staff and trainees, including the Alan A. Finder Internship.

Launched in 2020, our Mobile Market program brings affordable fresh food to underserved communities and paid work to homeless and formerly incarcerated staff and trainees.

Utilizing a prototype mobile vending kiosk, we operate pop-up markets at community partner sites, including farmers markets, municipal buildings, and healthcare facilities. These markets are stocked with fresh groceries and healthy grab & go meals we produce and package ourselves using recipes developed in collaboration with local chefs.

Building upon The Doe Fund’s 30 year history helping to break the cycles of unemployment, homelessness, and incarceration, the program also provides targeted paid work opportunities in the culinary arts, customer service, and small business management to graduates and participants of Ready, Willing & Able, The Doe’s Fund nationally-recognized transitional work program.

In 2021, we'll expand the program to additional neighborhoods, starting with the Lower East Side, bringing more fresh food and gainful work to New Yorkers in need. All funds raised in this campaign will go directly to supporting the costs of bringing the program to the Lower East Side.

In memory of Alan Finder, esteemed New York Times journalist, longtime champion of The Doe Fund, and father of Director of Good Food Works, Jason Finder, we will also introduce a new internship for high-performing graduates of Ready, Willing & Able’s culinary arts program.

The Alan A. Finder Internship will offer Ready, Willing & Able participants an opportunity to hone their skills and gain exposure to the fundamentals of small business management before embarking on the next steps in their careers.

With your support, we’ll expand to additional neighborhoods in early 2021, starting with the Lower East Side, and launch the Alan A. Finder Internship program.

We’ll continuously monitor program performance and refine our approach based on real time feedback from customers, employees, and community stakeholders.

Throughout this process, we’ll actively seek additional funding from private philanthropy, government, and community partners to further expand the program, bringing the model to as many New York City communities as possible.

We believe that everyone deserves a good meal, a good job, a chance at a good life.

We believe that not just food and health, but also employment and health, are inextricably interdependent. We believe that one’s zip code ought not determine their income, their health outcomes, their life chances. We believe that the option to make the healthy choice, to invest in oneself, to live for the future, in food, work, and beyond, ought not be a luxury but a universal right.

We envision a day when every corner provides a path to employment, health, and wealth, and we believe in The Doe Fund’s proven ability to execute its vision, to turn bold ideas into powerful realities, to get the job done. Above all, we believe in the power of community; the power to solve problems collaboratively, to support and uplift one another, the power of a motivated group of caring individuals to each offer what they can and together create a brighter future.

As someone who believed deeply in the power of education and paid close attention to the needs of society’s most vulnerable, we also believe the establishment of an internship in his name is just the kind of memorial Alan would have wanted.