After joining Feeding Westchester, Brad Kerner brought with him a background in public health and international development, work that had once taken him around the world. Moving into community engagement in Westchester County was a shift, but one that quickly revealed familiar connections between health, hunger, and the systems that support both.
In his role, Brad works closely with more than 175 community partners across the county, including food pantries, soup kitchens, and local organizations that are often volunteer-run and deeply rooted in the neighborhoods they serve.
While Feeding Westchester is often seen as the public face of hunger relief, Brad is quick to point out that these partners carry out the day-to-day work of receiving food, organizing it, stocking shelves, and supporting neighbors week after week.
“They achieve our mission,” Brad said.
He noted that partners are the ones ordering food, unpacking deliveries, stocking shelves, coordinating volunteers, managing distributions, and doing the work week after week to help food reach neighbors across the county.
Through this network, Brad has gained a deeper understanding of both the scale of need in Westchester County and the strength of the community responding to it. Despite being one of the most affluent counties in the country, many households continue to face hunger, and demand for support remains high.
At the same time, the network of more than 175 partners reflects a powerful culture of care, much of it sustained by volunteers and community-based organizations.
“Westchester is not a huge place geographically, but to have 175 partners in such a relatively small area is a strength in and of itself,” Brad said. “It made me think, wow, we really do have a community that cares.”
Brad has also seen how the hunger-relief system is evolving. In addition to traditional pantry distribution, innovative programs like Medicaid-funded home delivery through DoorDash are helping expand access by bringing food directly to people’s doors. During one recent distribution, hundreds of boxes were delivered to neighbors who might otherwise have had to travel, saving time and reducing barriers to access. Efforts like these reflect a growing commitment to meeting people where they are and adapting services to real-life needs.
“We partner with DoorDash, and this morning we sent out 300 boxes to people’s homes,” Brad said. “To me, that’s incredibly impactful.”
At the same time, Brad highlights an important focus for the organization: strengthening how neighbor feedback informs decisions. While community partners provide insights into local needs, Feeding Westchester is working to develop more structured ways to hear directly from neighbors themselves, including ideas such as advisory groups in high-need areas. The goal is to build a more consistent and meaningful feedback loop so that lived experience helps shape future decisions.
Brad sees this as an important next step in building stronger, more responsive systems of support.
For Brad, this work ultimately comes down to relationships and responsibility. It is not only about moving food through a system but about strengthening the connections that make that system work, between staff, community partners, and neighbors, and ensuring that each part is supported to serve with dignity and care.
When he reflects on the work, he returns to a simple truth: hunger relief in Westchester County is only possible because people show up for one another every day. From volunteers and pantry leaders to delivery drivers and staff, it is a collective effort that continues to grow, adapt, and respond to need.
“That’s really powerful,” Brad said.
And it is in that shared commitment that the future of this work is being built.
