Greenpoint Reformed Church Hunger Program
Staff & Leaders

  • Cara D'Annibale
    Americorps Member for Volunteer Engagement

    Cara D'Annibale is an Americorps member serving at our site through July 2020 thanks to the generous support of the NYC Service office. Her primary work is to build organizational capacity through harnessing the power of volunteers. Cara has lived in Brooklyn, NY for over 8 years. Originally from the tri-state area but has lived in major cities since leaving home. She attended art school in Chicago before heading to Los Angeles for beauty school. She remains a hairdresser and artist but found her true passion when working for an NGO, teaching young girls and women in Southeast Asia. Cara is a passionate vegan, studying integrative nutrition through lifestyle and wellness coaching and holds a special interest in helping people find their way. She believes real food is a healer and hopes to use her knowledge to educate and create lasting change. The things that occupy most of her "off-time" would be relaxing in nature with her dog/best friend, Coby, watching comedy, cooking vegetables, painting and exercising.

  • Ann Kansfield
    Executive Director

    Rev. Ann Kansfield has loved the people of North Brooklyn ever since the Greenpoint Reformed Church (www.greenpointchurch.org) called her to serve as their pastor in 2003. Due to demographics shifts over the prior century, the once large Dutch Reformed congregation hand dwindled down to less than a dozen people. In spite of many obstacles, the remaining congregants believed that the church had something to offer the community, and invited Ann to help revitalize their ministry. Ann may hold degrees from Columbia University (BA, with honors) and New Brunswick Theological Seminary (MDiv, summa cum laude), but the most useful skills acquired during her educational years may have come from a four-week course in bartending. She’s also built car batteries on an assembly line for AC Delco, and punched in stock trades for TD Waterhouse. But her heart belongs to ministry. Much of Ann's time is spent feeding hungry people. In response to having an increasing number of people come to the church asking for food, the congregation began a soup kitchen and food pantry in October 2007. She credits caring volunteers, colleagues and donors for enabling the soup kitchen and food pantry to keep up with the unprecedented demand for emergency food. Ann is married to Rev. Jennifer Aull. They have a son John (born in 2008) and daughter Grace (born in 2011). She is ordained in the United Church of Christ and serves. Ann is the first female and first openly gay chaplain of the FDNY, and was voted New York Times “New Yorker of the Year” in 2015. She is employed part-time as the executive director of the Hunger Program.

  • Joan Benefiel
    Program Director

    Joan Benefiel is the manager of the Hunger Program. She was born and raised in Kansas and attended University of Kansas in Lawrence, and the MFA program for figurative sculpture at the New York Academy of Art. Joan has spent many years in a variety of management positions in a wide range of environments from an investment banks to a sculpture foundry and a non-profit student housing cooperative. Growing up, Joan’s formative experience included volunteering alongside her parents at the local soup kitchens and homeless shelters. In her new role as Manager of the Hunger Program, she is thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to combine creativity and her managerial experience to help people in need.