Neri's Bakery has been awarded the 2012 Hunger Hero Donor Award by the Food Bank for Westchester. The award was presented June 5 at the 7th Annual Hunger Heroes Awards Breakfast at Abigail Kirsch at Tappan Hill, Tarrytown. The award was accepted by Brett Neri.
The Donor Award is one of four awards bestowed annually by the Food Bank to a Service Provider, a Volunteer, a Donor and a Corporation who have made great efforts and had significant impacts in the fight against hunger during the past year.
In addition to Neri's Bakery, this year's awardees are: Service Provider Award: Fred's Pantry, Peekskill; Volunteer Award: Lorraine Buonocunto, of the Ecumenical Emergency Food Pantry, White Plains; and Corporate Service Award: Morgan Stanley Foundation.
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Neri’s Bakery, in business for over 100 years, is a true American success story. It was founded in 1910 by Italian immigrant Paul Neri, who used a tiny brick oven to bake his bread. Today, the popular retail store on Pearl Street takes up a fraction of the enormous bakery facility surrounding it. Run by Paul’s grandson, Dominick Neri, with the help of his adult children, Anthony and Brett, Neri’s Bakery produces a million bagels and 700,000 breads and rolls every day, and its products are sold under established name brands on store shelves nationwide and in the Caribbean.
With their belief that it is important to "give back," the Neri family helps the community in many different ways. They give contributions and support to such organizations the Greenwich Special Olympics, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the Make a Wish Foundation of the Hudson Valley, the Ward Summer Learning Camp and the Knights of Columbus. To celebrate their 100th anniversary, Neri’s hosted a carnival in Lyons Park treating thousands of neighbors with a day-long festival of food and rides, capped off with an evening of fireworks.
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Neri’s provides cakes and pastries to Our Lady of the Rosary Church at Don Bosco Place and many of its programs. Neri’s also regularly donates bread, bagels, rolls, cookies and cakes to the Port Chester Carver Center for the children in the after-school program and seniors in the breakfast program as well as for the food pantry.
Neri’s Bakery is a stellar example of a successful family business giving back to the community.
ABOUT THE FOOD BANK: The Food Bank for Westchester, a not-for-profit organization that has been fighting hunger for 24 years, is the backbone of the county's emergency food network. It supplies 95% of all the food that frontline hunger-relief programs -- food pantries, soup kitchens, residential facilities, adult and child day-care centers, -- feed to hungry people, either as cooked meals or bags of food to take home. The Food Bank estimates that 200,000 people in Westchester are hungry or at risk of hunger. Half of them are seniors; a third of them are children under age 18. Last year, the Food Bank distributed over 7 million pounds of food -- but that was not enough! Recently, the Food Bank moved into a larger facility in Elmsford to get more food out to more hungry people now and into the future. The Food Bank for Westchester is located at 200 Clearbrook Road, Elmsford 10523; (914) 923-1100; www.foodbankforwestchester.org.
