simple and affordable plan to end it for good.
Since 2001, Berg has led the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, which represents the more than 1,200 nonprofit soup kitchens and food pantries in New York City and the more than 1.4 million low-income New Yorkers who live in households that cannot afford enough food. The Coalition works not only to meet these residents' immediate food needs but also to enact innovative solutions to help them move "beyond the soup kitchen" to self-sufficiency.
Prior to his work with the Coalition, Berg served for eight years in the Clinton Administration in senior executive service positions at USDA. For two years, he acted as USDA Coordinator of Community Food Security, a new position in which he created and implemented the first-ever federal initiative to better enable faith-based and other nonprofit groups to fight hunger, bolster food security, and help low-income Americans move out of poverty.
In addition, Berg worked as USDA Coordinator of Food Recovery and Gleaning for two years, working with community groups to increase the amount of food recovered, gleaned, and distributed to hungry Americans. Also while at USDA, he served as Director of National Service, Director of Public Liaison, and as acting Director of Public Affairs and Press Secretary. From 1989 to 1993, he served as a policy analyst for the Progressive Policy Institute and as a domestic policy staff member for then President-elect Bill Clinton's transition team.
Berg has published widely on the topics of hunger, national and community service, and grassroots community partnerships, including recent papers on childhood hunger and poverty, obesity, and practical solutions to end hunger as a Visiting Fellow for the Center for American Progress. He has also recently published papers on creating food jobs and other topics for the Progressive Policy Institute.
A native of Rockland County, NY, and a 1986 graduate of Columbia University, Berg now resides in Brooklyn. He is the past winner of the US Secretary of Agriculture's Honor Award for Superior Service and the Congressional Hunger Center's Mickey Leland National Hunger Fighter Award. His book, All You Can Eat, has received accolades around the country from anti-hunger leaders, elected officials, and the media.
