New Yorkers For New York Honoree Spotlight: Daniel Puerto: Feeding Community With Pride

Daniel Puerto is the kind of neighbor who makes a city feel like home. Whether it’s stopping to chat with a familiar face on the sidewalk or organizing food distributions for hundreds of families in Jackson Heights, his work is rooted in love, community, and deep local ties.

Daniel grew up in the neighborhood where he still lives and organizes today. It’s where he learned to navigate—and fight—the overlapping challenges facing LGBTQ immigrants, where he first got involved in political organizing as a teenager, and where he now helps lead an expanding network of food justice work through the LGBTQ-led Love Wins Food Pantry.

Launched during the pandemic, Love Wins was born out of crisis—but built to last. The organization began with one location and a clear mission: to meet hunger with dignity, pride, and zero stigma. Today, Love Wins Food Pantry operates at three sites across New York City, providing fresh produce and culturally relevant groceries to communities where quality food is often overpriced, understocked, or out of reach.

As Daniel explains, “These are neighborhoods that don’t have the income brackets for farmers markets... where produce might be a week old and still selling.” He and his team designed Love Wins to fill those gaps—with love, not judgment. Their distributions feel more like neighborhood block parties than food lines: joyful, affirming, and proudly queer.

CitizensNYC is proud to support Love Wins through our Community Leaders Grant program, made possible in part by funding from Con Edison. Our partnership helped the pantry weather major transitions, scale its work, and invest in long-term sustainability. As Daniel has said, “It wasn’t just the grant—it was the trust, the support, and the access to a broader network that made a difference.”

Daniel brings the same care to his other work and activism, where he advocates for LGBTQ and Immigrant New Yorkers of all ages. That intergenerational lens informs all of his work—he’s as likely to quote the Stonewall elders as he is to hand out a box of produce.

Now, as a 2025 New Yorker for New York honoree, Daniel continues to lead by example: blending service, pride, and deep neighborhood knowledge to feed not only bodies, but hearts, histories, and futures. Love wins—and with leaders like Daniel Puerto, it grows.