Neva Wartell

Neva Wartell is a co-founder of the Greene County Food Security Coalition and the executive director of the Catskill Food Pantry. She is the architect of the region’s only client-choice pantry model, and that innovation defines much of the Coalition’s standard of practice.

In a client-choice pantry, families select their own food from stocked shelves in a supermarket-style setting rather than receiving a pre-packed box. Neva’s work demonstrates why that change is more than cosmetic: it reduces waste because people take what they will actually eat, improves nutrition because families can build around what they know how to cook, and preserves dignity because shopping for a household is an ordinary act rather than a supplicant’s errand.

She anchors Catskill’s resilience through partnerships with the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York and with FeedHV, the Hudson Valley food-rescue network. Those relationships turn a single pantry into a node in a larger, more durable supply system — exactly the kind of connective work the Coalition exists to build.

As a co-founder, Neva carries the client-choice standard into the Coalition’s wider planning and sits on the Fellowship selection committee. Her contribution is a working proof that scale and dignity are not in tension — that a rural county can feed its neighbors well and respectfully at the same time.