History and Mission

Foodlink’s mission is to empower at-risk communities by providing food, nutrition, education and resources in Central and Western New York.

Foodlink’s vision is to end hunger, build self-sufficiency, and foster nutritional wellness. We pursue this vision through an innovative network of initiatives.

Our History

Founded in 1978, Foodlink has grown to serve a 10-county area in the Genesee Valley and Finger Lakes Region of Upstate New York. As a founding member of Feeding America, formerly America’s Second Harvest, Foodlink is part of a national network of 200 food banks. Locally, Foodlink rescues and redistributes nearly 10 million pounds of food annually to a network of 500 programs.

Foodlink has a 30-year history of feeding hungry people in the Greater Rochester area. Foodlink has its initial roots starting in 1976 when our current Executive Director, Tom Ferraro, was working at Action for a Better Community and received funding as a Community Food and Nutrition Program (CFNP).

In 1978, while making a community-wide appeal for food to support the growing number of emergency food pantries in the area, Tom received a call from the Thomas English Muffins factory to come and pick up what he needed. The next morning Tom drove to the warehouse to discover that his station wagon was not going to fit the tractor-trailer loads of product that awaited him! And thus the Genesee Valley Regional Food Clearinghouse, later the Genesee Valley Foodbank, was created with the mission to rescue and redistribute food from manufacturers and retailers to human service organizations. In 1992 the Genesee Valley Foodbank changed is name to Foodlink.

Today, the food bank's network of agencies serve 102,000 meals each week, or a total of more than 5 million meals annually. Since its founding, Foodlink has distributed over 150 million pounds of food that translates into $125 million worth of food for our community.