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The Food Bank for New York City, which each year helps feed more than a million New Yorkers — including thousands of children — was this year’s recipient of the UFT’s John Dewey Award.

“For more than 30 years, the Food Bank has worked to make sure every child has food in the house,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew in presenting the award.

Mulgrew said the award to the Food Bank was particularly appropriate at a time when hunger and homelessness are on the rise among New York City public school students. “Many of our families are in financial crisis,” he said. “The Food Bank has taken families from severe crisis to stability.”

The UFT works together with Food Bank on CookShop, a federally funded program operating in more than 200 city public schools to provide hands-on nutrition workshops. CookShop also provides a popular nutrition and cooking program for parents, which Mulgrew described as “always fully booked.”

Mulgrew praised the nonprofit as one of the UFT’s first partners in its Community Learning Schools Initiative. The Food Bank operates food pantries in many of those schools and helps connect families with other services, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and free tax preparation. Together, he noted, the UFT and the Food Bank recently developed a financial education counseling program that offers workshops on budgeting, credit and debt management.

The Rev. Henry Allen Belin III, the pastor of First A.M.E. Church: Bethel in Harlem and the chairman of the board of the Food Bank, accepted the award on the organization’s behalf.

“One in five of our children depend on a food pantry or soup kitchen and 20 percent of adults who rely on Food Bank are employed,” Belin said. “That’s the reality that brought us here.”

Belin praised teachers for their advocacy on behalf of hungry students and families. “Because of teachers, we know what poor nutrition does to young bodies and minds,” he said.