New York Cares' mission is to meet pressing community needs by mobilizing caring New Yorkers in volunteer service.

New York Cares' programs address urban poverty, with two overarching goals: (1) to meet immediate needs such as providing meals to the hungry, and (2) to offer longer-term education services and other support to help individuals break the cycle of poverty. This year, New York Cares will engage 56,000 volunteers on projects that will help 400,000 at-risk New Yorkers. New York Cares� services are very different from and far more comprehensive than volunteer organizations that match individual volunteers with nonprofit agencies in their field of interest. Our program staff works with 1,300 nonprofit agencies, schools and hospitals to identify each Community Partner�s most pressing needs, to develop programs through which volunteers can make meaningful contributions, and then to recruit and deploy teams of volunteers to help meet these needs. Every volunteer project is managed by three people to ensure continuity: (1) a New York Cares Program Manager who designs and manages the process; (2) an on-site volunteer Team Leader who manages the project and volunteers; and (3) a Community Partner contact who coordinates the agency�s involvement. Many Community Partners tell us they could not deliver their core services without the volunteer projects that we plan for them.