Long Island Council of Churches Emergency Food Center in Freeport to close due to lack of funding

One of Long Island’s busiest food pantries will close this month, its administrator said in a Good Friday interview.

Deacon Anthony Achong said the Long Island Council of Churches Emergency Food Center in Freeport would close April 15 because of a lack of funding.

"Food is getting more expensive, rent’s going up," he said. "Church donations are going down, churches are getting smaller."

The pantry is down to a staff of one — Achong, who worked there for a decade — and he will look for a position elsewhere, he said.

The Rev. Dr. Janice Moore, LICC chair, said in an interview that the organization, which has operated food pantries since the 1970s, will turn its focus to supporting smaller pantries across the region. "There are many churches that also have hyper-local focused pantries across Long Island that people go to regularly. If we can boost the efforts of churches that are trying to serve their own communities, we believe that then we are more aligned with the mission of the Council, which is to make connections and make partnerships."

The pantry will close at a time when its clientele is growing, Achong said. From March 2025 to March 2026, the number of pantry clients grew from 244 to 1,244. The pantry served people from Freeport, Bellmore, Hicksville, Hempstead and Elmont, he said, and was unusual on Long Island because it was open four days a week.

Moore said that Emergency Food Center clients would be able to find the food they need at other nearby pantries. But Achong said he believed people would go hungry because of the closure.

Some clients have told him that nearby pantries are already at capacity, he said. "People have a hard time already receiving food services, especially a lot of undocumented people who do not have access to other programs because of their status."

He said that in recent weeks, "I’ve been giving everyone a little extra every time they come and advising them that we’re going to be closing."

In 2024, LICC had food expenses of $139,296, according to the latest available tax filings. The organization’s revenue, which came almost exclusively from contributions, was $393,730, the lowest in more than a decade and about a quarter of what it was five years before.

Rob Hallam, who runs the People's Food Drive, a major source of donations for the Freeport pantry for years, said its closure would be a significant loss, not least because its refrigerators meant it could distribute meat and fresh produce. Not all smaller pantries have that capability, he said.

Hallam said he worried too about hunger trends on Long Island. "There's clear need, increasing need, and government doesn't supply all these people who need help," he said.

The Freeport pantry will close shortly before new federal work requirements begin to cut off some Long Islanders from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the federal food assistance program better known as food stamps.

New York’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, which oversees the program in the state, has estimated that about 300,000 households, or 17% of the total now receiving benefits, will be cut off.

Some SNAP recipients do not work because of caregiving responsibilities, lack of housing, undocumented mental and physical limitations, difficulty finding a job or landing one with necessary benefits, experts say.

The latest analysis from nonprofit Feeding America estimates that as of 2023, 8.7% of Suffolk and 7.8% of Nassau residents lived in a household that could not afford to buy enough food.

By Nicholas Spangler

nicholas.spangler@newsday.comspanglernewsday

Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.