Former Yonkers IDA chief leads Food Bank
The Food Bank for Westchester, which has been fighting hunger for 25 years and which now distributes 14 tons of food per day, has appointed White Plains resident Ellen Lynch as executive director.
Lynch, a former president and CEO of the Yonkers Industrial Development Agency, will guide the Food Bank”™s funding and operations to build capacity at the new Elmsford facility, the nonprofit announced. The nonprofit last year moved from a 15,000-square-foot warehouse in Millwood to a 37,000-square-foot facility in Elmsford to better serve hungry Westchester residents.
“We are thrilled with the appointment of Ellen Lynch as executive director,” Food Bank board chairman Rick Rakow, president and CEO of Rakow Commercial Realty Group Inc. in White Plains, said in a press release. “She is a results-oriented, civic-minded leader with a talent for team-building and gaining community loyalty. She is just the person needed to lead the Food Bank forward in these economically difficult times when more people than ever are hungry right here in Westchester County.”
The Food Bank estimates that 200,000 people in Westchester, or about 1 in 5 county residents, are hungry or at risk of hunger. Half of them are seniors; a third are children age 18 and under. The Food Bank distributes 14 tons of food a day to frontline hunger relief programs such as food pantries and soup kitchens. Last year it distributed nearly 7 million pounds of food.
Before heading the Yonkers IDA, Lynch was a senior vice president and managing director at White Plains-based Albert B. Ashforth/EastRidge Properties and served as director of operations, construction and tenant services at Schulman Realty Group. She lives in White Plains with her husband, Dennis Morrissey.
“At the core of my professional and personal life has been a commitment to promoting and improving the quality of life for people in Westchester County,” Lynch said in the announcement. Through my work on not-for-profit boards, I have focused on initiatives that have benefited my community in a meaningful way. What better way to improve the lives of many people in Westchester than to make a real and direct difference for those most vulnerable: the children, seniors and families who are hungry or living with food insecurity.”