Thanksgiving is an opportunity to show employees how much you appreciate them. It is also an occasion to encourage teams to give back to the community. Rather than organize an office feast with turkey and all the trimmings, giving back is a great way to commemorate the holiday. Employers can do this by encouraging employees and making it easier to volunteer. Giving back as a group helps build a community spirit in the office while promoting charitable causes.

What Can Your Business Do to Help the Less Fortunate at Thanksgiving?

There are many people in New York City that will celebrate Thanksgiving with very little. Businesses can show their appreciation for all their good fortunes by serving a meal at a local charity or church or helping to deliver meals. The Real Life Church at Hunts Point in the Bronx and Greenpoint Reformed Church in Brooklyn are just two community churches that serve meals during Thanksgiving. Bringing together colleagues to help with food preparation, serving or clean-up is a fulfilling opportunity to build your team while giving back.

There are dozens of organizations that are willing to partner with businesses to provide nutritional meals to less fortunate New Yorkers. City Harvest and the New York Food Bank welcomes volunteers as well as donations of canned foods and non-perishable items. Both organizations see volunteer positions fill up quickly during the holiday season, but there are smaller pantries and food banks that also need help. In addition to serving dinner to some 350 people on any given day, the Yorkville Common Pantry will also be offering a home-cooked meal on November 23. Located at 8 East 109th Street between Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue, the pantry welcomes volunteers on weekdays during the lead up to Thanksgiving. Each day, God’s Love We Deliver delivers three-course meals to 1,500 New Yorkers that find themselves homebound. During Thanksgiving, the charity welcomes drivers to deliver specially decorated gift baskets along with their meals. New York Cares also distributes food to community centers and senior centers throughout the city.

Free, Fun Thanksgiving Events in New York City

From the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting, late November host some of New York’s most iconic events. Winter’s Eve at Lincoln Square is a holiday celebration that brings together more than 20,000 people. Free entertainment and live music are held alongside food tastings from over 30 area restaurants and eateries. First organized in 2000, the event includes the Upper West Side’s only tree lighting ceremony. Winter’s Eve at Lincoln Square offers businesses a fun opportunity to bring together coworkers and their families while giving back to the community. New York Cares is one of the organizations that use the event as an opportunity to help the less fortunate, including with a coat drive. The charity also welcomes volunteers to help during Winter’s Eve.

When most people think of the fashion industry, they think about New York. The fashion industry is a vital part of New York City. The city has more headquarters of fashion retailers and designers than any other city in the country. The city is at the center of American fashion offering large pools of unmatched talent. New York is home to more than 75 leading fashion shows and thousands of showrooms. New York attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. The nation’s leading fashion schools are also located in New York.

The fashion industry emerged in New York City in the 1800’s, when the city was a hub of clothing manufacturing activity. Now the industry is the most prominent sector in New York. It is one of the small numbers of industries that compel considerable wholesale activity, direct employment and visitor spending. New York City has always been the preeminent capital of global fashion and serves as the headquarters to more than 875 fashion companies and hosts one of the four major biannual fashion weeks.

Central Park is an 843 acre public green space that is situated in the very center of Manhattan. It sits on public land owned by the city and is designated as a National Historic Landmark. Despite this designation, the park is not primarily funded by the government or staffed by civil employees. It is instead primarily funded and staffed through the Central Park Conservancy. The Conservancy is a non-profit organization that is responsible for contributing roughly 85% of the yearly budget to maintain Central Park. The Conservancy also employs nearly 80% of the park’s staff.

History

Central Park was not originally a part of the development scheme of New York City. In the early 1800s, the population of the city was not expected to expand so fast as to necessitate a designated public park space. However, the population explosion in New York of the mid-1800s led to a growing need for an open public space where people could escape the noise and chaos of city life. In 1853, the state legislature set aside 700 acres of land for use as the new grand park space of New York City. This was due primarily to extensive lobbying by wealthy New York City residents and many articles written on the subject in the New York Post. This led to the creation of the Central Park Commission that would be in charge of the park’s development.

If you have ever wondered about the cleanliness standards of your local burger joint, deli or pizza parlor you will be pleased to know you can now check before heading out to eat, although you may wish you were still innocently oblivious.

Every year the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene makes surprise checks on each restaurant in the New York City area, including Manhattan’s Chelsea, Midtown and Theatre Districts, to ensure their sanitation standards are of an acceptable level. Each dining establishment is then rated from an A to C grade by the New York City Department of Health inspectors.

We would certainly advise you check the interactive NYTimes restaurant ratings map before eating anywhere in New York, as it shows how many violations each restaurant has committed along with information on dining establishments with pest or insect infestations! The restaurant ratings map is updated every couple of weeks so you can keep an eye on what’s going on in your neighborhood and you can search by cuisine, grade and violation type.

The New York City Health Department inspectors check a number of issues, including food temperature, food handling and personal hygiene of staff, pest control and improper use of chemicals. Each restaurant is then given a letter grade that corresponds to the level they have been judged at, along with a description of any violations.

According to the The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, violations fall into three different categories, public health hazards, critical violations and general violations. Public health hazards are given a minimum of seven points and a restaurant may be closed down by the Health Department until the issue is resolved. A critical violation is given a minimum of five points and a general violation will receive a minimum of two points.

References: NYTimes and New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene