Take Action Against Food Insecurity in NYC: Spring Cohort 2025 Highlights

This May, the Idealist Action Incubator partnered with Communitas America to host Take Action Against Food Insecurity in NYC. The program focused on supporting nonprofit founders committed to addressing food justice in New York City. Seven participants were selected and participated in in-person, weekly workshops designed to provide a supportive, interactive, and educational experience to grow their ventures in the NYC area.

The program culminated in the final evening, Pitch Night, which provided each participant an opportunity to highlight their venture and work. Three finalists were selected and each won $5,000 from Communitas America: Ben Averbuch, Latresa Baker, and Sergio Monterroso. We’re happy to share a bit about each winner here. Congratulations to them, and to all our participants who continue to take action against food insecurity in their NYC communities!

Ben Averbuch: The Student Kitchen

Ben Averbuch is a high school teacher in Brooklyn who often noticed that a number of his students weren’t eating full meals during the day. A child in his class asked if he wanted some of his breakfast, and Ben was concerned when he held out a plastic sleeve of Oreos. He found that this was not only harming the students’ nutrition but also increasing the likelihood that they were struggling in the classroom, whether that manifested as acting out during class or nodding off in the middle of the day.

That’s when Ben decided to start The Student Kitchen, an afterschool program teaching high school students how to cook as an extracurricular activity. Participating in Take Action Against Food Insecurity in NYC helped Ben pinpoint where he could secure funding for his program. He shared, “Being in the program helped me zero in on what I needed to beef up. I have a really great program, but I didn’t have a means or vehicle for marketing myself beyond the students. The program helped me see the route I needed to make a venture that could potentially support me and the expansion of this work.” The program helped him identify potential donors and figure out his pitch to those organizations and individuals.

Ben plans to use his award to expand his operations, allowing the program to branch out, seek catering opportunities for alumni of the club and hire a digital marketing intern (Ben notes that it has been difficult to take picture while he’s in the midst of “chopping it up” in the kitchen with the kids).

Latresa Baker: Optimum Health Essentials

In 2018, Latresa Baker was diagnosed with pre-cervical cancer and underwent a painful and ultimately unsuccessful surgery. Weighing her options, she decided to take herbal teas recommended for restoring healthy cells and experienced a remarkable recovery. She then had a similarly positive experience when she switched to a raw vegan diet and started drinking green juice during a second health issue. She felt like she had discovered something that was flying under everybody's radar.

Latresa’s experience inspired her to found Optimum Health Essentials, a wellness brand that sells cold-pressed juice and non-toxic hygiene and cleaning products. She hopes to share some of the healing she experienced while also making the products “more desirable and accessible” to the general public. Latresa shared that participating in the program helped her articulate exactly what she was trying to accomplish with her business, while providing a great launchpad for founders. She said, “The program was essential in helping me to articulate what I do a little bit better and nail down a mission statement.”

Latresa shared that her goal is to demystify these resources for people and show them the benefits of not only juicing but also of being more mindful about what they put in their bodies. She believes that the major barriers between people and natural products are, in addition to price, a lack of information. She shared, “I wanted to have an educational piece about what I do in addition to the juices.”

Latresa hopes that by making these products easily accessible (and better understood), people will feel more encouraged to branch out and seek healthier alternatives in their food and product choices. She plans to use her award to acquire more necessary equipment and space to expand her operations, including a commercial juicer, shipping supplies, a vehicle for transportation, and a dedicated kitchen space.

Sergio Monterroso: G.I.V.E (Global Impactful Vision Efforts)

Sergio Monterroso saw that many food assistance programs were not aligned with recipients’ health and nutrition goals. During Pitch Night, He remarked that he believes these programs are “providing access to calories without personal guidance, cultural relevance, or integrative systems that can direct those calories to positive community health outcomes.” He noted that over two million New Yorkers rely on SNAP and WIC benefits, and that about 30% of adults of color suffer from chronic, diet-related health illnesses. 

As part of his work as Co-Founder and Executive Director of G.I.V.E. (Global Impactful Vision Efforts), he created the program Picking Matters to address this issue and provide people with the ability to coordinate their purchases with a reliable nutrition plan. The app utilizes AI to create personalized weekly plans for users and purchase foods that align with their individual and household needs. It is designed, in Sergio’s words, “to turn food assistance into food empowerment.” The app’s “agent” collects information about the user, including health background, household size, and diet preferences, and then supports the user’s health goals with a weekly meal plan. It also translates this information into a SNAP/WIC-eligible grocery list that is available locally and budget-optimized. 

Sergio shared how personal this work is to him: “My sister and I were first-generation immigrants. We grew up using EBT. We were on every social welfare, we had an immigrant, single mom. So we understand the struggles, and we know the feeling of how, regardless of the help that you receive, it feels like you are being left behind. And so we started this together so that we can help people.”

Sergio intends to use the money to launch the pilot program Picking Matters in the Flushing and Corona neighborhoods of Queens and build the AI tool with software engineers. Going forward, he envisions eventually opening a “full-scale health emporium” that combines a clinic, pharmacy, and grocery store in one space, making the app’s contributions all the more tangible.

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