Feeding America is the largest hunger-relief organization in the United States. Through a network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs, they provide meals to more than 40 million people each year. During the first months of the pandemic, roughly 4 in 10 people visiting food banks were seeking help for the first time.
Food banks have adapted to this new level of need with most food banks serving over 55% more people than before the pandemic began. With the help of donations and volunteers, the Feeding America network provided nearly 6 billion meals to throughout the US from March 2020 to January 2021. Member food banks received more than $326 million in emergency funding for their COVID response efforts.
Many people of all walks of life have helped make this all possible whether it was money or their time they donated. Tiller & Hatch co-founders Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams Paisley pledged a donation of 1 million meals in partnership with Feeding America. The brand made stops in 15 cities to give out frozen, chef-crafted Tiller & Hatch meals to local communities nationwide.
Impossible Foods teamed up with Colin Kaepernick and Know Your Rights Camp to distribute more than 1 million meals in 2020. Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and Disney Springs Chef José Andrés teamed up with Coca-Cola to donate $1 million to José’s World Central Kitchen to distribute 100,000 meals. The initiative also helped 150 local restaurants in communities hit hardest by COVID-19 by enabling them to rehire up to 1,400 employees.
Kanye West and Chick-fil-A both sponsored the Dream Center in Los Angeles, helping them to provide 300,000 meals to people in the area, including meal delivery to high-risk seniors in the community. Tan France donated to Frontline Foods, an organization that’s still supporting local restaurants and frontline workers by delivering meals to hospitals. Frontline Foods is feeding healthcare providers and has helped local restaurants in 38 cities stay afloat.
Over a year into the pandemic, 42 million people, including 13 million children, may still be at risk of hunger. Food banks are now accustomed to the increased number of people they are serving and Feeding America’s network of food banks are on pace to distribute 6.5 billion meals in 2021. But none of this would have been possible without donations and volunteers stepping up to get food into the hands of those at risk.
The pandemic reversed the last decade’s progress towards ending hunger in the United States. Sixty-five percent of network food banks working with Feeding America are accepting and still in need of volunteers. Unfortunately, many people continue to face unemployment and families still struggle to pay bills like housing, utilities, and medical care. Many people who had never volunteered before did so for the first time during the pandemic. The generosity many have shown and determination of everyday people to create solutions to the social distancing obstacles through the pandemic has kept millions of families going and the need is still there.
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After the head custodian at Edenton’s White Oak Elementary, Raymond Brown, didn’t take home the North Carolina School Hero Award he’d been nominated for last year, an entire community—led by one determined mom—got together to let him know just how much they appreciated him. Adrian Wood, whose autistic son Amos has formed a special bond with Brown said Brown welcomed her son and when the most popular man in the school gives her son a nice nickname, it drew other children in, leaving Amos with no trouble fitting in. “As a mom of a child with a disability, there’s nothing more I want in the world to others to include him” Wood said.
When the kids at his school realized there was something special going on between the 7-year-old and the school’s favorite grownup, it helped them see Amos in a way they hadn’t before. All the kids started talking to him. Even now, if you walk down the hall, you’ll hear children say, “There’s Famous Amos! Hey, Famous Amos!’
With her other two children, Wood went through the usual school-related worries, but having a child with special needs was another experience entirely. “Sending Amos to school was such a different path. He was 3 when he started school. He was in diapers and he didn’t speak. But after Mr. Brown started saying hello to him and calling him Famous Amos,’ Amos started saying, ‘Hey Brown,’ when he saw him. He wasn’t even saying ‘Daddy,’ at that point, so it was really something” Wood said.
Brown’s affection for little Amos helped the now 7-year-old fit in with his fellow students. “You have this man that everybody loves suddenly paying attention to this little boy,” Wood added, “Amos is a hard friend to have. He takes a lot more than he gives and that’s tough for children. But those kids saw that he was popular and loved and they started fighting over who would get to hold Amos’ hand on the way to the classroom. It meant so much to me for him to be so favored by the other children at school, and Mr. Brown had a big hand in that.”
When Brown was passed over for the NC Heroes Award, Wood admits to crying tears of frustration but she decided to find another means of honoring him. She used her Facebook blog, Tales of an Educated Debutante, as a platform to right a wrong. Within a week, she’d raised $35,000 from nearly 2,000 people from around the globe and had a plan in the works to shower Brown with the kudos he deserved.
On March 20, in a surprise ceremony that coincided with Brown and his wife’s 38th wedding anniversary, the Browns’ grown children along with hundreds of well-wishers—including Edenton’s mayor, the chief of police, and Miss North Carolina—were on hand to sing their beloved custodian’s praises and present him with a $35,000 honorarium dubbed “The Famous Amos Award.”
“I was very surprised,” said Mr. Brown, who wore a tuxedo to the event for his photo shoot. “I was caught off guard. To see all those people shouting and hollering ‘Mr. Brown, congratulations,’ it was beautiful and it’s hard to explain, but I know this community loves Mr. Brown.”
White Oak principal Michelle Newsome said “Mr. Brown is really, truly so deserving of all of this and then some,” said Newsome. “He’s our rock steady fella here at White Oak… he’s just a gem and we are so lucky to have him here. There isn’t a child in this building that doesn’t know who Mr. Brown is and that Mr. Brown cares for them and loves them.”
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Marjy Stagmeier started investing in old affordable apartment communities and quickly realized that many of her renter families were low-income single parents who needed services like after-school programs and playgrounds for their communities. She launched her own 501c3 nonprofit that provides free on-site services to families living in affordable apartments communities—and Star-C has since changed the lives of many families.
“Many children have come through the Star-C after-school program, who are now doctors, plumbers, and school-teachers, earning good wages that moved them out of poverty,” she said. “Almost 100 families have elevated from renting to home ownership because we kept rents low so families can save their money.” A chance meeting in 2017 with Bill and Melinda Gates, Mathew Desmond, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book Evicted—opened her eyes: Even with her rents below market, some of the tenants struggled to pay rent, so she began to build an informal resource network for families to get rental assistance. Through Star-C, her renters also have access to summer camps for their children, health care, after-school programs, meals for the children and more.
After COVID-19 struck in March 2020, many of Stagmeier’s tenants were laid off from their jobs or had to manage multiple children that were suddenly at home during the day, which made the need even greater. In April 2020, Star-C launched a $50,000 GoFundMe campaign for eviction relief. When the local municipal government of Cobb County found out about the Star-C Eviction Relief Fund, they quickly voted to donate $1.5 million of their federal stimulus funding. Other municipalities, like Fulton County, followed, and Star-C has now raised over $9 million from governments and foundations, giving the ability to help over 3,000 families avoid eviction.
Marjy’s staff has spoken personally with thousands of Atlanta families through their hotline, and has, so far, partnered with over 330 landlords representing 65,000 apartment units. “The eviction relief fund works with landlords who offer affordable rents for low-income families. Our landlords know their neediest tenants and assists them with their applications” Stagmeier said. The Star-C program has been a game-changer not only for tenants but landlords who have struggled as well. “So many of our tenants and landlords are simply grateful. Our Star-C staff often receives thank you notes and calls from families who have now found work and can pay their rent.”
The 2021 federal relief package has provided another $4.1 million so they can give even more assistance. Stagmeier is convinced her property model and brand of caring capitalism can transform communities and still make a profit for its investors. She believes it’s the logical, profitable, moral thing to do.
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A first of its kind supermarket opened in Wellington, New Zealand on March 16, 2021 thanks to the efforts of the Wellington City Mission and the supermarket chain New World. The social supermarket is just like any other supermarket, with fruits and vegetables, sanitary products, pasta, cheese and baked beans lined up along the aisles. While it has the look and feel of a regular supermarket, this store has no prices, all the food is free.
This new market is a big shift from the traditional model of people who are food insecure receiving ready-made parcels because it gives people the dignity of being able to choose their own food. In a time when food insecurity is on the rise in New Zealand, the new social supermarket will go a long way in reducing the stigma of people who cannot afford to purchase food on their own.
The Wellington City Mission’s blog post explained “We can only imagine how hard it must be for someone to ask for food support. The concept of the Social Supermarket is about providing dignity, self-respect and encouragement to those who are vulnerable in our local community. We wanted to make a positive change to our Foodbank model. We already had a close working relationship with New World across Wellington, they’re always hugely supportive with donations and through their annual Family2Family Foodbank Appeal, so when we started to develop the Social Supermarket concept, we picked the phone up and asked for their help.”
Chris Quin, CEO of Foodstuffs North Island who operate New World, says the partnership is a natural extension of a long-standing relationship between New World, it’s local owner operators and Wellington City Mission. Working together on the Social Supermarket, which is a first of its kind in New Zealand, provided an opportunity to extend the co-operative’s commitment to helping ensure all New Zealanders have access to healthy food.
The supermarket will be open for anyone in need in the Wellington region. This includes people who are already receiving help from the mission or who are referred from other social service agencies. People do not have to prove that they are in need to shop at the supermarket but appointments are necessary. The super is open Monday – Friday from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm with social workers on hand to help the shoppers. People are allocated points depending on their individual situations. A single adult is allocated $55 in points and families receive more. There are also special bins that include items that do not come out of the point system.
The market stocks almost anything you can find in a grocery store except alcohol or tobacco products and already has 3,000 different products. Even though the new store is being supported by a large chain, food donations are still needed and wanted.
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A simple question asked by a New Jersey moving company in 2009 has sparked an initiative capitalizing on the amount of food left behind in clients’ fridges in order to help increase supply to local food banks. Over 1,050 moving companies and 22 million pounds of food later, Adam Lowy—founder of Move for Hunger—has turned unwanted food items into enterprise-level charity.
Lowy said “When people move, they throw away a whole bunch of stuff: food, clothing, furniture, you name it. And what bothered us was the perfectly good, nonperishable food that was getting left behind in the pantry, or simply thrown in the trash. So we started by asking a very simple question: ‘Do you want to donate your food when you move?’” In the first month of Lowy’s idea, he managed to collect 300 pounds of food. He wondered if one moving company could make this kind of impact in their local community, what an entire network of moving companies could do.
That question, led to the creation of Move for Hunger, which links moving companies with food banks in their area, and these pairings with apartment offices, corporate housing, relocation management companies, real estate agents, and other entities to reach as many tenants and homeowners as possible about the impact they can make by donating their food before they change addresses.
Once one of these partners gets word that someone wants to move, Move for Hunger provides a pamphlet about local hunger problems, a large plastic bag, and a cardboard box—all to help people donate any food they don’t feel like bringing along with them. Then a local moving company will bring those packed-up pantry staples to a local food bank, helping ensure nothing gets wasted.
Hunger affects one in six American children, and it’s only gotten worse during the pandemic as government-mandated business closures have ravaged the economy, destroyed jobs, and disrupted supply chains. Move for Hunger operates across the USA and Canada. They try to hold special events—such as food drives and holiday-themed collections as well. Their February 2021 Spread the Love event received 16,000 meals donated across 300 separate food drives, and 20,000 pounds of peanut butter and jelly being used.
Rental property owners or managers, moving companies and real estate agents can help by signing up on the moveforhunger.org website and encouraging others to do so too. Anyone with an upcoming move can also find moving companies in their area on the website who will deliver their donated food. Move For Hunger’s mission is to mobilize the relocation industry to reduce food waste and fight hunger. Rescuing and donating meals for communities in need is so important because millions of people need help today.
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A GoFundMe page established by the son of one of the victims of the Atlanta spa shootings has garnered millions of dollars in donations from tens of thousands of people in just days. Hyun Jung Grant, 51, was one of the eight people killed when a gunman opened fire inside three Asian spas in the Atlanta area. Following the deadly incident, the victim’s son launched a crowdfunding page asking for $20,000 to pay for funeral costs and other expenses.
On the page he wrote “My mother, Hyun Jung Grant( maiden name Kim), was one of the victims of the shootings in Atlanta, Georgia at Gold Spa. This is something that should never happen to anyone. She was a single mother who dedicated her whole life to providing for my brother and I. It is only my brother and I in the United States. The rest of my family is in South Korea and are unable to come. She was one of my best friends and the strongest influence on who we are today. Losing her has put a new lens on my eyes on the amount of hate that exists in our world.
As much as I want to grieve and process the reality that she is gone, I have a younger brother to take care of and matters to resolve as a result of this tragedy. Frankly, I have no time to grieve for long. I will need to figure out the living situation for my brother and I for the next few months, possibly year. As of now I have been advised to move out of my current home within the end of March to save money and find a new place to live. My biggest priority right now is to put my mother to rest and plan out the funeral but due to some legal complications, I am unable to obtain my mother’s body. I don’t think I’ll be able to figure out this whole situation along with legal matters if given 2 weeks to move out. Any donation will be used as funds for basic living necessities for my brother and I such as food, bills, and other expenses. I wish to stay in my current home for at least one more month to sort everything out. Any amount would be forever appreciated. Please everyone just stay safe and check up on your friends and loved ones that may feel endangered”
The GoFundMe has received over $2.8 million dollars in donations from people around the world. Hyan has posted updates expressing how grateful he is for the support and acknowledged he has never had a good understanding of money but will only use the funds for pure necessity. He also said he can’t help but feel selfish for all the attention this has garnered and encouraged people to share the same care and kindness people have shown him to anyone that feels scared or unsure about the world we live in.
To date, no central fund had been created to aid families of the victims — a contrast with some other mass shootings where groups were set up to collect and distribute money to those directly affected. Several individual GoFundMe accounts have been set up for other victims of the shooting, all surpassing their goals but none to the extent of Hyun Jung Grant’s. Perhaps it’s because her young sons are now alone in the US amid the pandemic.
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Million Gardens Movement (MGM) is a charitable and educational initiative that hopes to put a garden in every household—whether that’s on a fire escape, in a window box, or as part of a community garden initiative—and fresh fruit and vegetables on every plate. The brain child of Frank Giustra and Elon Musk’s brother Kimbal, MGM puts Little Green Garden units in homes and classrooms for just a $10 donation.
The Little Green Gardens are ready-to-use fruit and vegetable garden beds—and over 5,000 of them have already been distributed. Kimbal Musk explains that each garden bed comes with a customized growing plan and online lessons and activities to support the growing of culturally relevant at-home veggie gardens.
If you’re a gardener, sign up to join the community. Donate $10 to give a garden to a family that can’t afford it, or that lives in a food desert, read and contribute to the blog, and then tell other gardeners about it. With thousands of gardeners already joining up with the movement, celebrities like Harrison Ford, Zooey Deschanel, Nicole Scherzinger, and Kimbal’s brother Elon—are helping spread the word.
We’ve been so humbled by the overwhelmingly positive response and the passion surrounding our mission,” says Frank Giustra. “When Warwick Saint was photographing gardening activists for our launch, activists like Salma Hayek and Jonathan Scott were asking us “What more can I do for the Movement? What else can I do to help get more people involved? That’s a real sign of how dedicated people are to making a difference.”
7,300 gardens in total have been started, including some done out-of-pocket, while 632 have gone into schools to teach kids about gardening and grow a new generation of gardening-savvy adults. “We’ve been able to deliver garden kits to Denver, Detroit, Memphis, and Indianapolis so far,” Giustra said. “We’re working to deliver 5,000 kits in Denver alone in April for Earth Month, and we’re working on delivery plans for cities after that drop. The most successful aspect of the Million Gardens Movement has been the continual growth of an online gardening community,” says Giustra. “Our Movement, just like gardening, is about developing our best aspects slowly and steadily as we grow in numbers towards one million gardeners. Seeing people donate is wonderful because they are helping others garden, and those who donate might also take up gardening.”
Food insecurity was a problem in America long before the pandemic began. One study from 2017 found that 5.6% of Americans don’t have adequate access to fresh food. The benefits of a home garden can significantly reduce these impacts—even something the size of the Little Green Gardens given out by MGM can help. “Our hope is to quickly expand to Canada this year with sights on Vancouver and Toronto,” says Musk. “We hope to expand to Mexico and beyond to make this a worldwide movement to encourage millions of people to grow their own food.”
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Scott Kolbrenner of Encino, California, a contestant on Wheel of Fortune, donated his $145,000 in winnings to be split between two charities. Kolbrenner won approximately $45,000 in cash and prizes during the regular rounds of play, before correctly guessing the bonus puzzle and collecting the $100,000 Grand Prize. He pledged $72,500 each to Uplift Family Services at Hollygrove and the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.
Kolbrenner has worked with Uplift Family Services, one of the most comprehensive behavioral health treatment providers in California, for the last 20 years. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors and volunteers his time. The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank sources and acquires food and other essential products to distribute to those experiencing food insecurity.
Kolbrenner has been watching Wheel of Fortune “his whole life” and watches religiously with his wife and kids. He was selected to be a contestant after applying with a video at WheelOfFortune.com and participating in a virtual audition. When asked he said the COVID-19 pandemic and current economic downturn is why he knew he wanted to help the community if he won. “It’s been a dark time,” Kolbrenner said. “When I went on the show, I was doing it for the fun of it, and I said to my wife … ‘If I do OK here, anything that I get, let’s give it to charity. We’re very fortunate. Let’s see if we can support some others who aren’t as fortunate as we are.”
He added “I got lucky that day and knew right away that I wanted to share my good fortune. So, I decided to contribute all of my winnings to Uplift Family Services and Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, whose services support thousands of families. The fun and memories from the day will stay with me forever, but the urgent need in our community cannot wait. My wife was the only person that knew what happened that night of the taping. It was complete and utter shock for everybody in our lives, and they were elated about it.”
Both organizations thanked Kobrenner for his generosity on Facebook. Uplift Family Services, which helps children and their families manage and recover from trauma and related challenges wrote “We are so honored and grateful that Scott chose to play for us while advocating for our agency’s Los Angeles-based Hollygrove programs!”
The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank said in a Facebook post said “It takes the whole community to fight food insecurity and the critical work that we do is possible with the help of people like Scott Kolbrenner.”
Kolbrenner said that Hollywood, despite being known for its “glitz and glamor,” also has struggling communities that are underrepresented. “What I was hoping with the ‘Wheel’ is to shine a light on them,” Kolbrenner said. The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank serves more than 300,000 people every month. They estimate one-quarter of the food they distribute goes to children, and roughly one-fifth to senior citizens in LA County.
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One small business owner got a boost from the Late Night Show host Stephen Colbert and some heavyweight Hollywood talent on Super bowl Sunday. As Colbert explained on his show “These big companies aren’t the ones who need our support the most right now. Its small businesses out there who have been hurt the most in this pandemic. Of course a small business could never afford the millions of dollars it would cost to produce and run an ad on CBS tonight. So we decided to pick a small business and just give it an ad. A Colbert PSA encouraging the support of local businesses had already appeared during the game.
With that introduction, a commercial for North Carolina’s Foggy Pine Books began, with a voiceover from actor Sam Elliott and Oscar-winner Tom Hanks providing a priceless deadpan endorsement as well as a closing jingle, the ad also featured skydiving, edible books, footage of the actual bookstore and a spotlight on their drive through window service. It may be one of the most charming commercials in television history. “Foggy Pine Books has the best selection in all of Boone,” said Hanks, holding up some books. “They have books on all of my interests such as World War II, and also books about the events from 1939-45.”
They already had a GoFundMe campaign up seeking support that said: “Foggy Pine is owned by a woman named Mary Ruthless, who has poured her heart and soul into this establishment portraying her passion for books and her love for all people no matter their age, race, gender or whatever it may be; all are welcome there. But maybe not for long. This pandemic has hit small businesses hard and despite Mary’s efforts there has been minimal government aid. It’s up to individuals and communities of all sizes to work together to help those in need. And Foggy Pine is in need. Every community should have an inviting bookstore and Boone has one of the best and most welcoming indie bookstores on the entire east coast. It would be heartbreaking to let this award winning store slip away.”
Owner Mary Ruthless isn’t sure why or how their business was chosen. “It was kind of like winning the lottery. They wanted to feature a small business that had been hit hard by COVID and do what they could to promote them. I don’t know exactly what it was that caught their eye. I’m sure part of it was our drive-thru.” No matter how they were chosen, with a mandate to sell 1,350 books a month or face defeat, it was clear without some kind of change, the outlook for this small business looked pretty bleak.
“I did everything I could try to do to stay in business. There were several weeks I didn’t take a paycheck, I had to lay people off after our PPE ran out, but we made it through the holidays… I was really pleased with that, but winter is our slowest season and I was really concerned about whether or not we were going to make it through the season” Ruthless said.
Ruthless said when the store opened for business the Monday after the Super Bowl ad aired, there were 500 book orders waiting, and business, while it’s settled down a bit after the initial bump, remains brisk. “Weeks ago we were wondering how we were going to make it through winter and now I’m having to hire a couple of extra people to process all the extra orders” a grateful Ruthless said.
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The coronavirus pandemic was in its early stages but Heather Ochoa already had noticed the need for food was growing. She began laying out food from her pantry and extra groceries on a table in her driveway in Oakley, California to help feed those in need. Social media posts and word-of-mouth helped spread the word that Ochoa, a mother of four, who had been laid off from her job at a local school, almost always had food to spare.
When her homeowners association cited her for having food on the porch, almost 1,850 community members signed a petition supporting her work. Ochoa now has a shorter, less visible table and at an HOA hearing set for later this month she intends to request a humanitarian exception so she can keep her pantry during the pandemic.
“Heather Ochoa has selflessly volunteered to organize a food pantry at her home for those in need during these unprecedented times of this pandemic,” Jeanne Reeves wrote in the petition she launched three months ago. “We support Heather in this act of selfless kindness 100% and we do not want her cited or asked to change her set up for providing this food to our community.”
Realizing many of the city’s older residents did not drive or have the means to get to the church, and others could not make it during giveaway hours, the young mom began a delivery service to distribute the food. Ochoa’s pantry and her food deliveries to those who couldn’t come to her has been so successful, that she now has her own Facebook group, “The pantry … Where God guides, He provides,” to share news about her daily food giveaways. A nonprofit by the same name is also in the works and friends have started a GoFundMe page to help with legal expenses.
Every day Ochoa picks up donations of food that is about to expire from stores and bakeries, which she either delivers to those who need it or adds to her porch pantry, open daily from 1 to 8 p.m. She has regular stops on different days, bringing food to elderly families in Brentwood and Bethel Island and to families with children. In addition to delivering to individuals, Ochoa often visits area homeless encampments to give out leftover food and, sometimes, can openers.
Ochoa said she and others, including churches and nonprofits, “work in unity with each other.” So when the others have leftovers, she often picks them up to add to her pantry, and when they’re out of food they may send clients to her.
“Driving around to Brentwood, Oakley, Discovery Bay, Pittsburg, Antioch and Concord — that’s what I do,” she said. “I love going to their houses and meeting them and giving them food. Not everyone can afford a car…. I help a lot of families that are cancer-stricken or have an illness, are disabled or elderly. Some can’t afford groceries for a week or they can’t apply for food stamps or government help. There are so many outlets out there,” Ochoa said. “There is no reason for anyone to be hungry anymore.”
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