As NYU’s 2025 Administrative Management Council Thanksgiving Food Drive came to a close last Thursday, organizers are celebrating another successful campaign. Since 2019, the drive has donated to CHiPS — Community Help in Park Slope, Inc. — a Park Slope-based organization aimed at combating food insecurity and homelessness in New York City.
With in-person donations having wrapped up Nov. 20 and online monetary donations closing on Thanksgiving, NYU’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and the baseball team have teamed up with AMC to help collect items on campus and expand the drive’s reach. Through online donations, the drive raised over $4,500 towards its $5,000 goal.
“It takes a team, so we’re grateful for the partnership we have with the baseball team and athletics,” AMC Community Service Committee vice chair Citlalli Castro said. “We are extremely grateful and humbled to be able to collaborate in acts of service.”
For the past several years, NYU’s baseball team has been a crucial part of the food drive’s success, from collecting donations around the city to doing the heavy lifting of delivering them to the CHiPS Brooklyn location.
“It’s an incredible feeling knowing that you are helping people who really are in need,” baseball head coach Douglas Kimbler said. “The people over at CHiPS are so happy to see us when we arrive.”
The team has used this drive as not only an opportunity to help those in need, but to build chemistry and set team standards off the field.
“Not just as baseball players, but human beings in places of privilege, I think we owe it to pay these types of things forward and lead by example,” junior pitcher Jason Gilley said. “It’s good to teach these guys that you should not lose sight of other people’s situations and using your privilege to help others is very, very important.”
Through the partnership with CHiPS, NYU’s donations will provide recipients not only a Thanksgiving meal, but also one for the next day. With the recent government shutdown and the resultant pause in SNAP benefits, the organization has posted on its website that it has seen an increase in need across the city, donating nearly 1,000 pantry bags to places like the New York City Housing Authority.
This year, the drive saw an uptick in food being stolen from donation boxes in NYU buildings, according to AMC Community Service Committee chair Nicole Najera.
“We are okay with it because at the end of the day, we are raising money and collecting donations for people in need, and there are many students who don’t know where their next meal is coming from,” Najera said.
In light of these occurrences, the drive organizers have been working to partner with NYU’s Office of Sustainability and the Office of the Dean of Students to assist students in need.
“We’re trying to figure out how we as administrators and staff can better support students or our entire NYU community,” Castro said. “If it is a drive further down the line, either for a pantry or for other resources, we’d be happy to help.”
Gilley, a cancer survivor, highlighted the importance of helping others who are in times of need. As a volunteer with the Catholic Center at NYU, Gilley was able to hand out weekly meals and bond with some of the recipients and said it was a transformative experience for all involved.
“The main point in all of this is giving those people their humanity back because it’s kind of stripped away from them,” said Gilley. “That’s our job as a society. The more privilege and wealth you have, the more you’re supposed to help people at the bottom.”
Organizers hope to help hundreds around the city during the holiday season. After this initiative’s success, AMC and the baseball team will work together for the annual Holiday Toy Drive from Dec. 1 to Dec. 18.
“Anytime a team can have a specific goal, it can only bring you closer together,” Kimbler said. “I think NYU itself promotes community involvement and when you are asked to be a part of it, you jump at the chance.”
Contact Naseem Rahman at [email protected].