15 Food Organizations That Deserve Your Support
15 Food Organizations That Deserve Your Support
This is not nearly a comprehensive list, nor does it try to be. There are literally fifty food organizations worthy of your support. Narrowing it down seems unfair but necessary. So, if you're interested in helping (and learning more about) organizations doing critical work in and around the food world, this is a good place to start.
OK, I'm prejudiced: Glynwood is run by my awesome life-partner, Kathleen Finlay. But it's a terrific model of a non-profit working to promote regional food systems, and does great work with CSAs, farmer training, cider production, and more. - Mark
If you're an anti-racist or someone interested in fighting racism in food, you should read about and support Soul Fire. (Or you could buy a copy of leader Leah Penniman's Farming While Black.) - Mark
Founded in 1975 by visionaries Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins, Oakland-based FoodFirst has perhaps the most astute analysis of the place of food in the world at large. New executive director Jahi Chappell promises to be an exciting leader. - Mark
Doing awesome work directly with partners and farmers to establish agroecology globally. I traveled to Haiti with founder Steve Brescia a couple of years ago and learned more in three days than I usually do in three months. - Mark
The biggest, most traditional, non-profit here, UCS defends science in food, climate change and more. Needless to say, that's important work right now. - Mark
Three Other Favorites…
Civil Eats, which has long been in the forefront of progressive reporting about food; La Cocina, probably the most successful small food business incubator in the country that focuses on people not tech; and Coalition of Immakolee Workers (CIW) - a way to thank farmworkers for getting food to our tables. - Mark
Founded in Pittsburgh, the nonprofit features an app that links partners with volunteers who prevent perfectly good food from entering the waste stream; volunteers pick up leftovers and extra food and drop it to where it's needed. 412 Food Rescue has paired with over 300 partners, including food pantries, soup kitchens, Meals on Wheels, homeless shelters, women's shelters, rehab facilities, and kids' after school centers, supplying them with fresh food. The network has recently expanded to include San Francisco, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and northern Virginia, with plans for partnerships in 100 cities by 2030. - Melissa
Chef Ann Cooper's organization supports schools through grant programs and provides schools with tools to help improve the quality of school meals and alleviate hunger among school-aged kids. - Melissa
God’s Love We Deliver was founded during the AIDS crisis in the 80s as a way to feed the countless people in NYC who were unable to take care of themselves. Today, their awesome team provides almost 2 million free (and medically tailored) meals—all made by their 16,000 volunteers in their beautiful kitchens—every year to clients in need. - Kate
Founded by MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Wes Jackson as a place to develop “Natural Systems Agriculture,” you can invest in perennial crops (including the Kernza® wheat) and other big-picture sustainability projects at this Kansas-based global eco-lab. - Kerri
Because a polluted Puget Sound will support neither marine life nor people. This science-based group specifically focuses on the historically industrial Tacoma area known as Commencement Bay with tentacles that reach into other parts of the Sound and the surrounding natural habitat. - Kerri
Their Hospitality for Social Justice fellowships provide food service training for young people who’ve been directly impacted by the criminal justice system in New York. Until late last year, New York was one of only two states to automatically arrest and prosecute 16-year-olds as adults. When these kids return from adult jail they have the deck stacked impossibly high against them. Drive Change is helping to knock down those barriers in meaningful and enduring ways. (Also, I’ve worked and cooked with these fellows and the food they’re making is no joke.) – Daniel
Community Servings provides scratch-made, medically tailored meals to chronically and critically ill individuals and their families in the Boston area. They’re also at the forefront of the Food Is Medicine movement, which seeks to integrate food and nutrition interventions into the healthcare system (participation in medically tailored meals programs leads to fewer hospital admissions and lower healthcare costs). The potential impact of this work on a state and national level is really exciting. – Daniel