Celebrating Pride with Sylvia Rivera’s Place
Middle: Makailah Hayes current director of Sylvia Rivera’s place
This June, Rethink Food is celebrating Pride by reflecting on the intersection of LGBTQIA+ life and food insecurity. Today, we’re highlighting our community partners at Sylvia Rivera's Place.
Sylvia Rivera's Place operates on the principle that no person should be turned away from their doors - and seeks to meet the nutritional needs of low-income, working, and HIV+ individuals and families in NYC. Currently, they serve over 170,000 pounds of food through daily lunches and grocery distributions, including hot, nutritious meals from the Rethink Certified restaurant partners.
Beyond nutrition, Sylvia Rivera’s Place also acts as a homeless youth shelter by providing crisis resources like emergency housing, intensive social work, connections to long-term housing, on-site free medical services, and much more. Its spirit of radical care and inclusivity comes from transgender activist and legend Sylvia Rivera, who previously served as director of Sylvia Rivera’s Place when the organization was just a small food pantry in midtown.
Who was Sylvia Rivera?
Sylvia Rivera was a beloved community rights activist who worked at the forefront of the Gay Liberation movement in New York City. At a young age, she was taken in by a local community of NYC drag queens, including legend Marsha P Johnson. Alongside her chosen family, Sylvia advocated for the full inclusion of the transgender community - and people of color - in the battle for equal rights. Through Sylvia Rivera’s embodiment of inclusivity, she was able to transform the food pantry into a safe haven for LGBTQIA+ people. Rivera showed her care not just through food, but also through conversation and support. In 2001, Rivera was facing a decline from a battle with liver cancer - yet with conviction, showed up to work every day to continue her activism. She declared her dream for a homeless Queer youth shelter in New York City, and soon after her passing, the food pantry expanded, and renamed themselves Syliva Rivera’s Place.
Why Does LGBTQIA+ Food Insecurity Matter?
Sylvia Rivera’s Place is critical to our mission because it directly addresses the often overlooked intersection of LGBTQIA+ people and food insecurity. The statistics speak for themselves: 27% of LGBT adults experienced food insecurity the prior year compared to 17% of non-LGBT adults, 27% of LGBT people participated in SNAP compared to 20% of straight cisgender people, and 18% of LGBT adults reported that they or someone in their family went without food for an entire day the prior month.¹ Social and economic policies that have long discriminated against LGBTQIA+ individuals, and communities of color, have exacerbated these individuals' susceptibility to food and financial insecurity.
¹ Source: Food Insecurity and SNAP Participation in the LGBT Community
This June, Rethink Food honors both Sylvia Rivera and Sylvia Rivera’s Place for doing the crucial community work that needs to be done. We visited the current director of Sylvia Rivera’s place, Makailah Hayes, to discuss her work, the state of food insecurity, and what Pride means. When asked what Pride meant to her, Hayes stated, “Pride really means the journey we’ve went through to get to the point where we are today”. In this, Hayes shows how Pride is not just a festival or a month, it is the ongoing recognition of the individuals who trail-blazed before us. It is about learning from the work that they have done, so that we may amplify and better use our efforts. Perhaps most importantly though, it is about celebrating everything that has succeeded from those efforts, over the simple act of sharing a meal.