A local nonprofit has kicked off a citywide scavenger hunt celebrating New York City’s iconic street vendors — and Queens residents are encouraged to join the fun while supporting a good cause.
The Street Vendor Scavenger Quest, sponsored by Metro Plus Health, Turnstile Tours, and Culinary Backstreets., invites locals to discover some of Queens’ best street food, handmade goods, and cultural experiences while raising funds for the Street Vendor Project (SVP), a program of the Urban Justice Center.
The quest launched on April 5 and runs through April 25. It offers a series of interactive challenges that encourage participants to connect with vendors and explore the wide range of street food, art, and merchandise available across the city.
Participants can join solo or form teams of up to 10 people to compete in a series of trivia missions and vendor-related tasks. Along the way, players will get the chance to sample global cuisines and discover handmade goods from local artisans.
Once registered, participants receive access to a mobile app where they’ll complete missions such as answering street food trivia, visiting vendors, and engaging in other on-the-ground activities. Teams earn points by uploading photos of completed challenges and can collect bonus points for every dollar they raise for SVP’s translation fund, which helps ensure that non-English-speaking vendors can fully participate in meetings and advocacy efforts.
The event serves as both a celebration and a fundraiser for SVP, a membership-based organization that represents more than 3,000 vendors across the five boroughs. The nonprofit works to defend vendors’ rights and improve their working conditions — advocating for those who sell everything from tacos and tamales to art and apparel on NYC’s sidewalks and streets.
All registration fees and donations from the Street Vendor Scavenger Quest will go directly toward supporting language justice initiatives at the Street Vendor Project’s (SVP) bimonthly membership meetings.
Mohamed Attia, managing director of SVP, said the Scavenger Quest is a fun and meaningful way for New Yorkers to show their support for the city’s vibrant street vendor community.
“It’s a really interactive game just to get folks to complete missions, meet with new vendors, try new foods, and purchase new products,” Attia said. “They get to learn more about the vending system and the challenges that vendors face, and we get people to do this in the most fun way.”
Attia gave a sneak peek into some of the interactive challenges teams may encounter during their quests.
Some challenges involve looking for a specific food item and taking a picture of it. In contrast, others involve going to a specific location and checking one’s location in the app to prove one’s participation. “One of the great challenges, which I love the most, is just to get people to have a taste of the challenges that vendors face, which would require the participants to go to the licensing center and try to apply for a general vendor license. They see what the licensing center representative tells them,” Attia said. Attia added that he enjoys this challenge in particular because it gives participants a brief look into the challenges many vendors face in obtaining their street vending license.
When the challenge ends on April 25, points are tallied, and winners are invited to attend the in-person closing ceremony on Sunday, April 27, to collect their prizes. Prizes are awarded for different categories, including the team that won the most points and the team that raised the most money for the SVP. The closing ceremony will be held at Au-Pou’s Taste, located at 963 Grand St. in Brooklyn, from 2-4 p.m.
The annual Scavenger Quest began in 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Attia said SVP found a creative way to fundraise for the nonprofit while considering the limitations and challenges that emerged from the pandemic. “We just came up with this idea to have an outdoor activity that will get folks, supporters, and allies to get them involved in a fun way; while they are outdoors, they are interacting with the vendors, he said. “ That was the safest public event we could have held at the time.”
For more information and to register for the event, click here.
