Diocesan News

Faith Inspires Local Woman to Fight Hunger, Offer Lifeline to Homeless

Crystal Wolfe had a busy afternoon at the food pantry at the Church of St. Teresa in Woodside, where she gave out hundreds of pairs of socks. “Socks are the most requested item in homeless shelters, and I believe in giving people what they say they want, not what you think they should have,” she explained. (Photo: Paula Katinas)

WOODSIDE — When Crystal Wolfe left Indiana for New York several years ago, she thought she had a job as a newspaper reporter waiting for her, only to find out that the position was no longer available once she arrived. 

However, despite being stuck in the Big Apple with no support, Wolfe didn’t panic because deep down, she knew everything would work out. 

“God has a plan,” she told herself at the time. 

Today, Wolfe uses her writing talent to bring awareness to the plight of the homeless and her organizational skills to find a new way to feed the hungry.

Wolfe has written and published nine books. The first, published in 2017, “Our Invisible Neighbors,” attempted to demystify homelessness.  

“The truth is that many homeless people in this country are homeless only for short periods of time, like a couple of days, and most homeless people are women with children,” Wolfe told The Tablet. 

Beyond writing, she has used her creativity to try and find solutions to hunger. In 2018, she started a nonprofit organization, The Solution to Hunger, and developed a website that allows restaurants, supermarkets, and businesses to network with pantries and other entities looking for food.

At the center of her efforts, she said, is her Catholic faith. 

“I believe that as Catholics, God wants us to love everyone and help people,” said Wolfe, a parishioner of St. Sebastian Church in Woodside.

When Wolfe ended up in New York City without the reporter’s job, she recalls “struggling to survive” and taking any job she could. She ultimately landed with a company that catered Wall Street events, which she said led to a major turning point in her life. 

Crystal Wolfe says she wrote her first book, “Our Invisible Neighbors,” to bring awareness of the true nature of homelessness. “There’s so much misinformation out there. I wanted to set the record straight,” she explained.

Wolfe said she noticed two things as she worked amid Wall Street executives — that the food being served was of high quality and the caterer was throwing the leftovers in the trash. Eventually, at one event, she gingerly approached her manager and asked if the leftover food could be donated to the homeless.

Wolfe said she was disheartened by his answer. 

“He said, ‘We’re concerned about liability,’ ” she recalled. “He said, ‘Companies are afraid that if they give food away and someone gets sick, there would be a lawsuit.’ 

“So I thought, ‘Well, what if a church came to pick it up, or a food pantry?’ ”

At that moment, she said the idea of establishing an organization came to her “in a flash,” and soon after, she established the nonprofit, which eventually became The Solution to Hunger.

“And this is where God having a plan comes in,” she said. 

Wolfe, who knew nothing about how to set up a website, attended a community board meeting in Queens to talk about her nonprofit and met a tech-savvy man who offered to help her. 

The website allows restaurants, that have food to give away, to register to see if there are any food pantries in their community in need. Conversely, food pantries looking for food can see if there are restaurants in their area giving away food.

The Solution to Hunger has grown in recent years. There are now more than 300 restaurants and scores of food pantries listed on the website.

Wolfe has also expanded the reach of the nonprofit to include distributing T-shirts, underwear, toiletries, and socks, which she said “are the most requested item in homeless shelters.”

Even with the success of her website, Wolfe still rolls up her sleeves and works at the grassroots level. On the day she met with The Tablet, Wolfe was at the food pantry at the Church of St. Teresa in Woodside, distributing socks and toiletries. She said she does the same at a number of food pantries each month. 

While Wolfe is devoted to her Catholic faith, she is also a relative newcomer. Born and raised a Protestant, she converted to Catholicism in 2018. Her Catholic journey began when a friend invited her to a meeting at St. Sebastian Church, followed by a Mass. She has been a member of the Church ever since. 

“I felt so at home there,” Wolfe said of her first experience at St. Sebastian’s. “That was probably part of God’s plan, too.”