History of CFA NJ and Impact By the Numbers - Center For Food Action

Our Mission & Impact

The mission of the Center for Food Action is to “prevent hunger and homelessness and improve the lives of individuals and families living in poverty.”

Who We Are

The Center for Food Action (CFA), founded in 1976, is a non-profit, 501 (c)(3) organization that provides emergency services to northern New Jersey’s poorest and most vulnerable residents. CFA provides food, housing, utility, and heating assistance and offers counseling and advocacy services to low-income individuals and families. CFA is headquartered in Englewood and has sites in Hackensack, Mahwah, Ringwood, and Saddle Brook. In 2014, at the request of Bergen Community College, CFA opened a site on BCC’s Paramus campus in order to serve low-income students and their families.

Started by the late singer Harry Chapin and Bill Ayres as World Hunger Year New Jersey, the agency originally focused on the global causes of world hunger but within months of its start, it became evident that some people in our own community needed help in order to put food on their tables.

We're Dedicated to Making a Difference!

Improving Lives

CFA improves the lives of low-income families and individuals from over 100 towns in northern NJ. CFA provides a wide range of emergency and case management services so that our neighbors in need are able to put food on their tables, keep a roof over their heads, keep their lights and gas on, heat their homes. Our advocates help provide information, referrals, counseling, assistance in accessing public programs and other community services needed to help improve their lives.

The Many Faces of Hunger

It shows itself in a parent skipping meals so her children can eat, a child going to bed with an empty stomach, an elderly person choosing to pay rent rather than buy groceries, the mom who at the end of the month encourages her teenage son to go to dinner at his friend’s home so he has a meal, the elderly man going through a dumpster outside a local restaurant and the grandmother raising her grandchildren who regularly adds water to milk to make it stretch a few more days. Each of these individuals lives in our community and has turned to CFA for help.

Open and Inclusive to All

Here at Center for Food Action, we want all of our employees, the communities we serve, our suppliers and our donors to feel valued and free to be who they are. We are committed to being respectful, culturally sensitive, and appreciative of our differences that unite us together while building an inclusive organization that is focused on serving the needs of all of our neighbors regardless of their race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age, or veteran status.

2022 Impact Report

See Impact Report