Governor Hochul: “When we think about the Lord telling us that what you do for the least of my brothers you’re doing for me. Today we’re helping some of our brothers and sisters, and life is sometimes hard for people and we have to make sure that we never forget them — not just during the holidays my friends, but year round.”
Hochul: “It’s a shame the stress that our people were under over the last month when their SNAP benefits, their food benefits were being held as political collateral damage — to hurt people and make them suffer enough …We had to spend millions, a hundred million dollars to go to food banks that were already struggling. But no one ever should have been denied even for a second”
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul participated in the distribution of turkeys as part of Catholic Charities’ annual Thanksgiving celebration alongside Timothy Cardinal Dolan and other elected officials.
A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:
Thank you, brother, good morning everyone. I want to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving season and recognize our elected officials. We have Assemblymember Jordan Wright here, and I wanna give a special shout out to Monsignor Sullivan and the incredible work that he has done for so many years with Catholic Charities. Catholic Charities as an organization that I know very well, my father was a Catholic Charities Captain.
So every Lenten season, he would take his little daughter Kathy to go knock on doors and ask for money to raise and support those who have less than all of us. And that is the teachings of my faith that lead me to where I am today in this position as Governor, that sense of moral responsibility to others to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
But also I take special note today of Matthew 25. When we think about the Lord telling us that what you do for the least of my brothers you’re doing for me. Today we’re helping some of our brothers and sisters, and life is sometimes hard for people and we have to make sure that we never forget them — not just during the holidays my friends, but year round. And it is a shame, It’s a shame the stress that our people were under over the last month when their SNAP benefits, their food benefits were being held as political collateral damage — to hurt people and make them suffer enough. We stood out here, we had to spend millions, a hundred million dollars to go to food banks that were already struggling. But no one ever should have been denied even for a second, the knowledge that food would be there during a shutdown — never in our history has that happened.
So I come here today with a heart full of gratitude for all of the volunteers, Catholic Charities, the people who are here today. We’re here to lift you up to say, we see you, we understand you. As I said, life can be hard sometimes, but I believe to our core we’re better than that — we’re New Yorkers, we stand together, we help each other in our time of need.
That is how I was raised as a social justice Catholic. That is how I know everyone in New York feels not just during this holiday time, but year round. So just want to say thank you and never forget also to thank those who served in our military. Many of them are homeless and they’re struggling as well, and that is not the return from putting their lives on the line to save our country and to support our values as Americans. They deserve better than that. So again to our veterans, if there’s anyone here — a heart full of gratitude for me on behalf of 20 million New Yorkers as well.
So happy Thanksgiving everyone. Thank you.
November 25, 2025
Albany, NY
Sources: Governor.ny.gov , Big New York news BigNY.com
Midtown Tribune news
