New Yorkers rising up together to meet unprecedented challenges is in the fabric of this great city.
Through the COVID-19 crisis, we’ve seen countless examples of the community-minded selflessness and resilience associated with New York City and we’ve been inspired by those who have raised a hand and stepped up to help their fellow citizens.
In this spirit, we are setting out to reflect what’s truly undeNYable about our city and the people who make up our extended NYCFC family, all doing whatever it takes today to be back together again tomorrow through the sport we love.
undeNYable is a series of weekly themed stories here on NYCFC.com, holding up members of the NYCFC family who’ve shown the meaning of "For The City", coming through for their fellow New Yorkers when it has mattered most.
Lior Rachmany is the CEO and founder of Dumbo Moving & Storage, a proud partner of New York City Football Club. The company was founded in its namesake Dumbo, Brooklyn in 2007 with just one moving truck and has since grown to over 55 trucks and an army of movers. Like many businesses in New York City, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought on many challenges but Lior and the entire Dumbo Moving family have made stepping up for their community during these trying times a priority.
“Back in March, like most of New Yorkers, we were kind of in a state of disarray,” Lior reflected. With transportation options becoming less available for staff members and many public facilities and vendors shut down, the company experienced limitations in regard to how they could operate. “We were facing a great deal of us cutting our revenue in ourselves. We were still looking for options, how to come up with the upper end from this.”
For Lior and Dumbo, it was important to stay committed to the community even while the company was struggling. “I think what helped us a lot is consistency, you know, regardless of the difficulties, we will continue to push forward.” He added, “We were making ourselves available for our customers. We never stopped operation. We never closed the company. We kept our workers safe.”
In May 2020, Lior was contacted by the Brooklyn Nets, who Dumbo also sponsor, informing him that the Mayor’s Office was looking for a large vendor of shipping and receiving and warehousing. “We answered the call to see what was it about and it happens to be that the city is getting about 60 tractor trailers, something in the vicinity of, you know, 900 pallets of PPE (personal protective equipment).” Lior continued, “We felt compelled to take this challenge. In a matter of days, we were already receiving the first shipments.”
Dumbo generously contributed 95,000 square feet of storage space in their new warehouse for 30,000 boxes of PPE and of all labor to transport, unload and inventory it during a period of two months to the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City’s COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund. Dumbo would eventually deliver the PPE to various facilities where it would be distributed to healthcare workers and first responders, and other essential staff on the frontlines of the pandemic. “We were happy to do that even though it was not easy at all, receiving those 60 trucks, warehousing about 50,000 square feet of it, and then delivering it to various facilities.” He added, “We were honored to take a part of it.”
A big part of the Dumbo Moving spirit is soccer. So much so that with many staff being ex-professional athletes or amateur athletes, they have a recreational soccer team that plays often. Now in their second year as partner of the Club and Lior draws many comparisons between his company and NYCFC. “Seeing a new club, up and coming, it's something that is very similar to us,” He said. “This is our 14th year. And to reach these numbers and this amount of transactions, that's something that pretty much is unprecedented. Same goes to NYCFC. They came out up big.”
Since Dumbo was founded in 2007, it has always been important to Lior that the company be active in the community it serves and always gives back. A big part of making that a reality, is embedding compassion in everything Dumbo does as a company. “I think, any businessperson that wants to find in a success needs to have compassion... We try to build that in the company.” Lior continued, “Compassion has been passing on and on, having an open-door approach. And most important, if someone needs something, we're always here to help.”
Lior emphasizes that Dumbo is more than just a moving and storage company, and he believes all businesses have an opportunity to make a positive impact in their communities. “We are not just for profit. We want to continue and increase our charity and reach out. It is important to us and this is something that we encourage any other business to do, because at the end of the day, if everyone else will do it we would have more equality.”
