On Thursday, Move For Hunger was awarded a $50,000 grant from the PHL COVID-19 Fund. The fund is a collaboration between the Philadelphia Foundation, the United Way of Greater Philadelphia, and the City of Philadelphia to combat the rising need created by the pandemic. In total, the fund has awarded $13 million so far to 383 non-profits.
The hunger crisis has been exacerbated by COVID making an estimated 17 million more Americans food insecure. Before the pandemic, 1 in 9 people in Pennsylvania were food insecure including 1 in 7 children. In the city of Philadelphia, food insecurity is the highest in the state at 1 in 6 people (16.3%).
Move For Hunger is uniquely positioned to fight this crisis. By mobilizing the relocation industry, Move For Hunger can rescue food from a variety of sources and transport it to the local food banks in the area. Since its founding in 2009, Move For Hunger has delivered over 150,000 lbs of food in the Keystone state which is the equivalent of around 126,000 meals.
There are currently 717,200 people in the Philadelphia Foundation’s served counties above who are struggling with food insecurity and hunger, and they are even more at risk in the face of Covid-19. While Move For Hunger does not track the demographics of each of the individuals who benefit from its programs, all demographics access food banks/pantries and therefore are food insecure/hungry and vulnerable.
“Many of the people visiting food banks and pantries these days are doing so for the first time in their lives,” says Adam Lowy, Founder & Executive Director of Move For Hunger. “We’re grateful for the support of the Philadelphia Foundation in helping us to meet the growing need, and it’s going to take a lot more collaboration and innovation to help lift people out of poverty during what is sure to be a difficult 2021.”
Move For Hunger has delivered more than 130,000 pounds of food to food banks in the fund’s target counties since we started our work in the area, representing over 100,000 meals for those in need. In 2019-2020 alone, we recovered over 20,000 pounds of food that would have otherwise have been wasted or discarded, which included a delivery of 2,500 pounds of food from A.T. Buzby Farm to Philabundance in Philadelphia by our moving partners at Gentle Giant as well as the transport of nearly 3 tons of nutritious chocolate milk to the Touch NJ Pantry and Miguel’s Pharmacy by Anchor Moving and Storage.
Move For Hunger will leverage this grant to fund its food recovery efforts. In 2019, we set a record of 3.6 million lbs of food recovered. With the support of the Philadelphia Foundation, we will look to surpass that in 2020.
