(PHOTO: Executive Director Jon Haseltine at the Meals on Main Street Spice Drive at the Capitol Theatre. Contributed.)
Giving Rye is a feature series highlighting non-profits and community groups in and around the City of Rye. Today meet Jon Haseltine of Meals on Main Street.
Your Name: Jon Haseltine
Name of your organization: Meals on Main Street
Your role: Executive Director
MyRye.com: Tell us your organization’s mission
Haseltine: We fight hunger and food insecurity wherever we find it and provide access to healthy food for all those in need.
How long have you operated in or around Rye?
Haseltine: Meals on Main Street, previously known as Caritas of Port Chester, Inc., was incorporated as a 501c3 in 2011.
What programming or work is the organization best known for?
Haseltine:
- We work with farms, grocery stores, restaurants and commissaries to rescue high-quality food and reduce food waste.
- We prepare healthy, nutritious meals in a state-of-the-art commercial kitchen in Port Chester and bring it to our nonprofit partners to help feed our shared clients.
- We partner with schools, community-based organizations, faith-based organizations, and volunteers to deliver meals and fresh food to clients in Westchester, Putnam, Bronx, and Fairfield Counties.
Looking forward to 2026, what will be your top initiatives?
Haseltine:
- We will be launching our second state-of-the-art commercial kitchen in Mt. Kisco to bring more than 150,000 meals per year to Northern Westchester communities.
- We just received a $100,000 Transformational Grant from the Junior League of Westchester on the Sound to launch a mobile community café truck to bring delicious meals to underserved areas of Southeastern Westchester. This experience will embody the principle of dining with dignity and all meals will be donation optional – meaning that clients can pay, not pay, or pay it forward!
- We will be implementing a major solar installation on our rooftop to help us continue on a path toward environmental sustainability. This project will further reduce our carbon footprint and the money that we save in electrical costs will be reallocated toward bringing even more healthy food to our clients.
Tell us about the population you serve and how they can get involved with your programming and services.
Haseltine: We bring food to communities that are experiencing hunger and food insecurity by using our three mobile pantry trucks, each carrying 1,000 meals per run. We visit more than 50 locations in Westchester, Putnam, Bronx, and Fairfield Counties on any given week.
Nearly all of our clients are low income and/or people struggling to make ends meet.
Are you a 501(c)(3) non-profit with tax exempt status?
Haseltine: Yes
Looking back across 2025, what were your organization’s top achievements?
Haseltine:
- We crossed the one million meal mark as we entered into 2025 and we have seen the demand for our services rise by more than 20% during the year. The Meals on Main Street team has met the challenge with current staffing levels and organic growth from its existing and new food sources. We thank Food Rescue US and Feeding Westchester with helping us meet the growing demand.
- We launched our group volunteer program in Port Chester, hosting several nonprofit and for profit organizations to plug into our existing work to distribute high-quality meals to those that need it the most.
- We brought on our first fully electric box truck to help us rescue farm fresh food and double our refrigeration capacity. This box truck also is a part of our multi-year plan to reduce our carbon footprint and minimize operational costs.
How can local residents support your organization?
Haseltine:
- Volunteer – Sign up online or speak with Jon Haseltine about group events.
- Donate – Give generously to support our work to bring high-quality food to our neighbors in need.
- Be a Conscious Consumer – Don’t buy food in excess, only what you like and need to support your family and friends.
Tell us about you:
How long have you been in your current role?
Haseltine: This is my second year as Executive Director for Meals on Main Street.
Is the role full time or part time? Paid or volunteer?
Haseltine: Full Time
How would your friends and family describe you in one word?
Haseltine: Resourceful
Where did you grow up?
Haseltine: Maine
What principles guide you when you have to make a difficult decision?
Haseltine: I have six core values that I use to filter all my decisions: listening, patience, compassion, logic, focus, quality. I learned these values several years ago at an executive program at Columbia University and they have served me and my clients well over the years.
Can you share a time when failure taught you more than success ever could?
Haseltine: Recently, our organization has experienced growing pains as we try to serve more people in need. My failure was trying to do too much on my own. When I realized that I have many supporters around me (e.g. board, staff, funders, friends, family) I realized that I can ask them for help, which has shown me that we can get more done in an effective way. I guess we all need help sometimes and this is a lesson that I continue to learn.
What excites you most about the future—for yourself or for the world?
Haseltine: I am more interested in the present than the future. Right now our world is going through a lot of change and with this change it brings out the good and the bad. What drives me is contributing to doing good in the world … Meaning that it’s so gratifying bringing healthy food to people who are in turn happy to receive it. I guess someday I would like to be out of work knowing that no person in our community goes hungry.
Where do you live and how many years have you lived there?
Haseltine: I have lived in Westchester County for nearly twenty years. I have family that are long-time residents of Rye.
Thanks Jon!
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