Volunteering is an important part ofthe Nunbelievable mission, so it was great to see our team of summer interns recently offer their time to one of our impact partners. On a sunny Friday in July, the five of them got together at City Relief’s lunchtime outreach in New York, where they served hot meals, distributed socks and other supplies, and treated the guests to Nunbelievable cookies.
City Relief (previously known as NYC Relief) is an incredible organization that provides food, health and hygiene supplies, and support (including one-on-one counseling) with compassion to those struggling with homelessness and hunger. We are proud to work with them asone of our impact partners. For every cookie sold, we make a donation to these inspiring organizations.
“There was so much smiling and positive vibes,” says social media intern Agathe Thomin, who chronicled the volunteer outing — and got the plum assignment of handing out our cookies.“It was so good to see the impact we're having in action.”
Two other interns, Brett Perlmutter and Alex Schachne, were assigned to the food truck, where they helped prepare and serve hot soup and bread to City Relief’s clients. “It was really cool to be face-to-face with everybody, being able to have conversations,” says Brett, who is helping out with our loyalty program and media strategy this summer. “It was incredible how thankful each of the individuals who came up to the truck were about getting their next meal. I felt a lot of gratitude on my end, but Alex probably had the coolest interaction of all of us.”
Indeed, Alex caught the attention of one of City Relief’s clients, a man named Anthony, who noticed that Alex looked like an athlete. (Indeed, Alex plays basketball for his college team.) “Then he challenged me to a push-up competition,” Alex says of the energetic man, who is a fitness trainer. “I said maybe later, and then he came back three more times. And eventually I was like, I’ll go outside with him and we’ll do this.”
That turned into an impromptu training session for Alex, who is working with us on development and website design. “He basically took me through a full workout,” Alex says with a laugh. “That was pretty crazy because I was in my Nunbelievable t-shirt and khakis, and he had me doing push-ups, squats, everything you can think of. Thenafterwards he was giving fitness tips to everyone. That was the highlight. I think it made his day for sure.”
Though they didn’t work up as much of a sweat, interns Eva Quigley and Nico Corporon kept busy distributing Bombas socks and personal protective equipment (PPE) to the City Relief clients. “It was incredibly uplifting,” says Eva, who is working with our social media and customer happiness teams this summer. “Everyone was super friendly, and they made us feel really welcome and they were eager to work with us again. The whole time we were smiling and really enjoying conversing with everyone. We just felt like we knew everybody there.”
Adds Nico, who is helping with our fundraising efforts, “Volunteering at City Relief introduced me to so many incredible people that I am very grateful for. I hope to be able to participate in another event soon.”
Though many of City Relief’s clients are going through extremely challenging times, the overall mood during this outreach was incredibly positive. “It felt more like a community barbeque,” says Alex. “There was food, there were tents set up with places to sit, and people were eating, drinking, and listening to music. Beyond just the actual physical nourishment, it was great for a lot of people to be treated with the dignity and respect they don’t often experience.”
We encourage you to follow NYC Relief’s work on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you’d like to volunteer with them, click here for details. And if you’re interested in joining Nunbelievable on upcoming volunteer days, sign up for more information here. We look forward to seeing you soon!
