Community Help in Park Slope, Inc. (CHiPS), is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community meals program, food pantry, and women’s shelter in Park Slope that has provided hot meals to the hungry and homeless since 1971. CHiPS began providing transitional housing and support services for young mothers and their infants in the late 1990s, after the purchase of the CHiPS building at 200 4th Ave. We currently can house up to nine women and their infants. Last year, CHiPS served approximately 192,000 meals and distributed 25,000 pantry bags. 

CHiPS is run by a board of directors consisting of up to 15 Brooklyn residents, a small professional staff led by the executive director, who is a non-voting member of the board, and hundreds of volunteers from the NYC area. Many of our board members and volunteers have been involved with CHiPS in some capacity for decades.

CHiPS serves the hungry and homeless regardless of faith, race or ethnicity, gender, age, immigration or housing status, or employment status, and is supported by community and civic organizations, schools, churches, synagogues, and a diverse group of volunteers and staff who reflect the Brooklyn community. We remain proud of our historical connection to the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor and St. Francis Xavier Parish, whose commitment to serving the needy was the reason for starting CHiPS in 1971, however we are not affiliated with any church or other religious organization.

We would love your involvement as a volunteer, your financial support, in-kind donations, or your assistance in developing corporate, business, and non-profit partnerships.

Yes, CHiPS is a registered non-profit organization and provides every donor with written documentation of their gift.

Our annual budget is just under $2.5 million. Since CHiPS does not have ongoing government grants, all of our budget must be raised each year. $0.85 of every $1 donated to CHiPS goes directly to our programming. The other $0.15 we use for administrative and fundraising-related costs.

CHiPS will gladly accept your donations! Please visit our Amazon wish list to see what we need the most right now. We also accept sandwiches and baked goods such as cookies and muffins.  Please feel free to give us a call at 718-237-2962 to ask us about what other in-kind donations we can accept at this time.

We encourage everyone to visit CHiPS.  Please contact us to arrange a time to visit.  We love to have donors or potential volunteers visit so they can learn more about our operation and get a personal sense of how they can contribute, whether as volunteers, financial supporters, or in another capacity.

Donor contact information is entered into a confidential database, which is used to generate thank-you letters for tax purposes.  Our records are confidential, never leave the premises, and are never sold to marketers of any sort.  If you would like to opt out of this database, please inform us, and we will send you a letter confirming your gift for tax purposes but leave your personal information out of our system.

Many charities serve important needs.  Our donors tell us that giving to CHiPS’ dual mission of feeding the hungry and housing young mothers and their children makes them feel a part of a truly caring community.  The results are immediate and obvious.  Contributors see that their gift delivers an immediate result: food, housing, and hope, right here in the Park Slope community.  When so many things are beyond our ability to change, this is a problem we can do something about.

The first step to joining as an individual volunteer is to fill out our volunteer application. The final step of the application will prompt you to select and sign up for an upcoming orientation date. Volunteer orientation sessions are held virtually on Fridays at 2PM. Any further questions can be directed to volunteer@chipsonline.org.

On a personal level, CHiPS is warm, friendly, and focused on its guests.  We hear this from our volunteers who have worked at other soup kitchens, and our guests themselves. CHiPS is not formal or regimented.  And when it comes to food, CHiPS meals are some of the healthiest. Nearly 80% of the food we prepare is donated by businesses and local community members like Trader Joe’s, ReThink  and CIty Harvest. CHiPS is unique in another important way.  We offer young mothers and their babies safe, secure housing for one year through our Frances Residence Program.  Here, young women focus on learning how to care for themselves and their babies and developing critical life skills to become  independent members of our community.

CHiPS was established in 1971 by an ecumenical prayer group that served meals out of the basement of the St. Frances Xavier Church and gave out free medical and legal consultation to individuals in need. 

We feed, on average, around 500 people a day, Monday through Saturday.

Lunch is served Monday through Saturday from 11am-1pm. Breakfast is served Monday through Saturday from 9-10:30am. 

For breakfast we serve bagels, eggs, cereal, pastries, yogurt, coffee, tea, and milk. Lunch always consists of a starch, a protein, and a vegetable.

The food pantry is open Thursdays and Saturdays, 11am to 1pm.We also run a Mobile Pantry Van. Hours and locations are posted on our website. 

Our hot meals cost around $4 each. 

Prior to the pandemic, as many as 14.3% of the community was experiencing food scarcity. Now, around 32% of New Yorkers find themselves fighting food insecurity and visiting food pantries. In Brooklyn, over 300,000 people don’t know where their next meal will come from.

The Frances Residence can accommodate 9 mothers and their babies.

A mother can stay for up to one year.