Dr. Melony Samuels serves as the founder and executive director of The Campaign Against Hunger (TCAH, formerly Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger), a community based service organization in Brooklyn, NY. As the Executive Director, Dr. Samuels is responsible for daily operations, vision planning, and resource management for TCAH. Prior to founding TCAH, Dr. Samuels worked in the insurance industry and was the Chief Administrator for the Full Gospel Tabernacle of Faith church in Brooklyn, working extensively on strategic management, proposal writing, event planning, and business development. In 1998, she founded a small, traditional food pantry located in a church basement. The Campaign Against Hunger (TCAH) grew out of this effort, formally becoming a nonprofit in 2005. Today. the organization provides services to over 300,000 unique individuals each year. TCAH has since expanded beyond the SuperPantry service to include mobile pantries, which reach the South Bronx, the Rockaways and all of Brooklyn, two robust Urban Agro-Ecological Centers, a social services office, a community kitchen and nutrition education hub, and a youth and leadership development program.
Dr. Samuels’ philosophy is that only through strong partnerships can lasting change arise. She has lived this vision by forming and presiding over the Bed-Stuy Providers Network, a collaborative group of 18 emergency feeding programs in the Bedford-Stuyvesant community. She sat on the Strategy Council of the Food Bank of New York, the Advisory Committee of City Harvest, the Council on Hunger and Food Policy, the Steering Committee for both the Manhattan Borough President and the Politics of Food Conference, and she currently serves on the Vital Brooklyn Initiative Committee. Dr. Samuels also maintains close working relationships with the National Food Bank, Hunger Free America, and the New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH).
Dr. Samuels and TCAH were featured in the Bill Moyers Journal report on Hunger in America and in numerous other publications including the New York Times, May 22, 2017. Dr. Samuels was honored by the Brooklyn Community Foundation with the Brooklyn Do-Gooder Award and received the Food Bank of New York’s Can Do Award. She was recognized as an Everyday Hero by the NY Post and was awarded their Liberty Award. Dr. Samuels was the recipient of the 2017 Chapin Award for Excellence from WhyHunger, a national nonprofit, and TCAH was a finalist for the Spark Prize for Innovation awarded by the Brooklyn Community Foundation in December, 2017.
Dr. Samuels received her doctorate in Religious Education from the Christian Outreach Bible College and Theological Seminary in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
