All Souls: Good Neighbors from the Very Beginning

Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter has served New Yorkers in need for forty years. But we wouldn’t be able to offer the level of service we do without the help of our community partners, some of whom have been with us since the very beginning.
One of those partners is the Unitarian Church of All Souls, which has been providing free meals to their community for decades, even before the founding of NCS. When faith and community leaders came together to address rising homelessness on the Upper East Side, forming what would later become Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter, members of All Souls joined in to be part of the solution.

Free meal programs like All Souls Monday Night Hospitality and Friday Soup Kitchen are an essential resource for hungry New Yorkers including many NCS clients. But the COVID-19 pandemic forced a lot of these programs to suspend their services when people couldn’t gather safely for meals.

Fortunately, All Souls Monday Night Hospitality and Friday Soup Kitchen were able to switch to a grab-and-go model and continue serving their neighbors. They filled the gap left by other programs by preparing additional lunches and dinners and setting them aside for the NCS Residence - and every Monday and Friday, rain or shine, volunteers deliver those extra meals to the Residence.

NCS was founded on the belief that homelessness is the responsibility of the entire community, and we are so grateful for the community members and organizations like All Souls who show up every day to help their neighbors.

In honor of NCS’s 40th anniversary, we will be sharing stories about our founders, volunteers, supporters, and staff who make our work possible, and the residents and clients at the center of our mission.
Check back throughout the year as we regularly update the series with new stories from our 40 years here.