By stufflovely
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A New Jersey moving company has launched an initiative that takes advantage of the amount of food left in customers’ refrigerators to help increase supply to local food banks.
More than 1,050 moving companies and 22 million pounds of food later, and Adam Lowy, founder of Move for Hunger, has turned the leftovers into corporate-level charities.
“When people move out, they throw away a lot of things: food, clothes, furniture, whatever,” Lowy said. TODAY. “And what bothered us was the perfectly good, non-perishable food that was left in the pantry or just thrown away.”
It’s true. When you’re trying to crate all the little things, pots and pans in your kitchen and take them out again a few hours later, the last thing you want to think about is packing 6-month-old canned peas and dehydrated spaghetti.
“Moving is stressful, you know. It’s not a fun experience, a lot is happening, ”Lowy said. “And we started by asking a very simple question: ‘Do you want to donate your food when you move in?'”
PLUS: How Phoenix Feeds the Hungry Fresh Food While Saving Local Businesses and Farms
That question, first posed in 2009, led to the creation of Move by hunger, which links moving companies with food banks in your area, and these pairings with apartment offices, corporate housing, relocation management companies, real estate agents, and other entities to reach as many tenants and landlords as possible about the impact they can have by donating their food before they change address.
Once one of these partners hears that someone wants to move, Move for Hunger provides a brochure on local hunger issues, a large plastic bag, and a cardboard box, all to help people donate any food they need. they do not feel like taking it with them. they.
A local moving company will then bring the packaged pantry staples to a local food bank, helping to ensure nothing goes to waste.
Move for Hunger operates in the US and Canada these days and tries to run special events such as food drives and Christmas-themed collections.
His February 2021 Spread the Love event? He saw 16,000 meals donated through 300 separate food drives and the use of 20,000 pounds of peanut butter and jelly.
RELATED: The 2020 Nobel Peace Prize goes to the world’s largest hunger program
Hunger affects one in six American children and has only worsened during the pandemic, as government-ordered business closures have devastated the economy, destroyed jobs and disrupted supply chains.
In the first month of Lowy’s idea, he managed to collect 300 pounds of food, raising the question, “If a moving company could have this kind of impact on their local community,
What could a whole network of moving companies do? “
Those are the kinds of questions and ideas that can turn one in six to zero in six.
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