Jilly Stephens is CEO of City Harvest, New York City’s first and largest food rescue organization. City Harvest rescues high-quality, nutritious food that would otherwise go to waste and delivers it for free to New Yorkers experiencing food insecurity. For almost two decades, Jilly has overseen the organization’s efforts to meet the rising need for food assistance during numerous crises, including Hurricane Sandy and the pandemic, while putting in place long-term initiatives to address the nutrition needs of low-income communities across the five boroughs. 

To meet the urgent need for emergency food during the COVID-19 pandemic, City Harvest stepped up its operations and, from March 2020 through June 2022, rescued and delivered nearly 300 million pounds of food as well as 193,000 prepared meals donated by City Harvest’s restaurant partners. In addition, City Harvest distributed 30.5 million pounds of food through a pop-up network of 59 emergency sites and regularly delivered personal protective equipment to its network of partner agencies. Under Ms. Stephens’ leadership, all of this was accomplished while the organization operated from temporary warehouse facilities while its Sunset Park, Brooklyn headquarters was being renovated. 

Stephens has dedicated her career to helping New Yorkers in need. She joined City Harvest as Senior Director of Program Development in 2004, leading the expansion of nutrition education programming and the development of community-based programming including Mobile Markets®, and retail partnerships, which now collectively reach over 400,000 New Yorkers annually. Prior to City Harvest, Jilly served as Vice President of Program Operations at ORBIS International, a nonprofit dedicated to the elimination of avoidable blindness through surgical training and education.