The Neediest Cases Fund
Each year, the Neediest Cases Fund holds a fund-raising campaign during the holiday season, with stories in The New York Times describing the travails of families and individuals in distress. The Neediest Cases Fund then distributes the funds from the campaign to seven large multi-service agencies that serve New Yorkers of all denominations in the metropolitan area. The New York Times Company covers all administrative costs of the program, so every dollar donated to the Neediest Cases Fund goes directly to provide for those in need through the seven agencies. The Neediest Cases Fund may also contribute funds from its endowment to address an immediate and urgent need. These are the portraits taken for that campaign...
Demetria Mack poses for a portrait in Brooklyn, New York on November 13, 2020. Mack was a sophomore at Howard University studying majoring in computer science, but her college life was about to be completely reimagined due to Covid-19. When the pandemic hit in March, her college closed and her permanent housing was no longer available. She quickly had to find a new place to live and adapt.
Atreyal Ransom, 19, of Brooklyn poses for a portrait at the O'Dwyer Community Center where he found a second home volunteering. At an early age, Ransom experienced the loss of his mother to cancer and was raised by his grandmother and older brother. He was always a quiet and isolated student and had very few friends in school. He went on to spend his free time volunteering 3,000 hours at O’Dwyer Gardens Community Center he wanted to give back to the center that he considers his second home.
Keith Ford, 23, was 18 when his mother threw him out of their home during his senior year of high school at Voyages Preparatory Academy in Queens. Self-conscious and concerned about how his classmates and teachers would react, Ford said he kept his homelessness a secret. For the remainder of his senior year he “couch-surfed” at friends’ homes or slept on the subway. He survived on the food he saved from school, but oftentimes did not eat. Ford lives with his fiancé, Tanaeja Wright, in her parents, Brooklyn apartment. They are hoping to move out and get their own place soon. They plan to get married in 2020 and his long-term goal is to go to college and become an architect.
Malik Glanville is originally from Jamaica and moved to the United States with his father when he was just a kid. For most of his life, Malik has lived with his father but he and his father have never been on good terms and it resulted in Malik sleeping from house to house, always traveling with a backpack. Malik struggles in school because he is worried and anxious about his living situation and the way he presents himself – he has nowhere to call home and barely any things to call his own.
Darius Cummings, 34, a full-time student and father of his seven-year-old son, Jadice found himself caring for an ailing uncle while also providing additional support for his father, Illinois Cummings. Then his mother passed in April then a few months later his uncle passed away in June. While he is still grieving the deaths of his mother and uncle he is looking forward to graduating from college, a goal his mother cared about a great deal and providing a safety net for his family. Michael Noble Jr. for the New York Times
Manasia Horne is an 18-year-old homeless student, photographed on November 1, 2017 at Brooklyn High School for Leadership and Community Service (BHSLCS) in the schools studio classroom. For the past two years, Horne, her parents and 15-year-old brother have been in and out of shelters and are still looking for a more permanent home in Brooklyn close to the high school. After a few months at Leadership, everything has made a dramatic change for the better. Horne couldn’t believe the change -the school helped her understand her class work better than before and has helped her as a person and with her attendance. Currently, Horne excelling in her film/multimedia class with teachers saying she’s a natural in front of and behind the camera.
Roscoe Boyd, 37, rehearses “Sweet, Sweet Spirit” before his performance at the 22nd annual Derrick Bell Lecture in the Vanderbilt Hall at New York University
Royah Nunez, 27, poses for a portrait. Nunez is homeless, works six days a week as a dog trainer, leaving at the crack of dawn to visit clients around the tristate area. She loves her job and is not merely dreaming of starting her own dog-training business, but actively planning for it. She's cultivating clients and educating herself. After a long history of physical violence in her home. Her father a violent man, Nunez and sister were frequent recipients of his attacks. Late last year, her father saw her holding hands with her girlfriend over the surveillance cameras that he had installed all over their property. He attacked her with a knife, aiming for her face, but she caught the blade with her hand injuring her and kicked her out of their home.
Anna Ponomarev and her mother Elena pose for a portrait at Ceasar's Bay where Elena walks routinely on November 6, 2019. Elena enjoys this bay, "I was born near the Black Sea it reminds me of home down here," she said. Elena will spend that hour of walking clearing her head, enjoying the weather or people watching as a break from the day-to-day. - In the summer of 2002 her son Nikolai fell from a 10th-floor balcony at a friend’s apartment.He fractured his skull and died instantly. He was 20 years old. “My heart was broken,” Ms. Ponomarev said. “I lost that feeling that everything is going to be O.K.” Life at home became unbearable. Ms. Ponomarev and her husband developed depression and anxiety. She took about three months off work, and he felt an overwhelming sense of survivor’s guilt — he blamed himself for Nikolai’s death. “He was so depressed,” Ms. Ponomarev said. “He couldn’t eat.”