The boxes are packed, the moving truck is outside, and you’ve wrangled the kids. Now, what to do with the food you can’t move with you? Don’t throw it away! Through Move for Hunger, your movers can donate unopened, non-perishable items to local food banks and pantries for you.

“In Colorado, 120,000 people are food insecure,” says Adam Lowy, founder and executive director of the New Jersey–based organization. “Why are so many people hungry when so much food is literally getting tossed in the trash?” Colorado Hi-Tec Moving & Storage and Pikes Peak Moving & Storage are two of 10 Colorado companies working with Lowy to do something about that number. Karen Dickens, owner of both, and her teams have collected almost 75,000 pounds of food since linking up with Move for Hunger in 2009. “Food is a basic need,” says Dickens. “Joining was a no-brainer.”

Background

“I founded Move for Hunger 10 years ago,” Lowy says. “My family owns an almost 100-year-old moving company in New Jersey. It bothered us that people were leaving pantries of food behind, so we started asking people if they wanted to donate their food. We collected 300 pounds in a month. I brought it to our local food bank and learned there were 140,000 people just in my county that didn’t have enough to eat. I thought if one mover collects that much from just asking a question, what happens if you mobilize an industry? To date, we’ve delivered 11.5 million pounds of food across the U.S. and Canada. That’s enough to feed about 10 million people.”

How it works

“Movers connected with us (check Move for Hunger to find local partners) will ask if you want to donate your food as you’re setting the service up. On moving day, you fill designated collection boxes or, in an apartment, paper bags, and give them to the movers, who take food to a local food bank once a month. We’re working with more than 900 moving companies, plus relocation management companies, corporate housing providers, and apartment communities. We also organize thousands of food drives and special events and rescues each year.”

How you can help

Start a food drive or fundraiser, join the walking and running race group Team Move for Hunger, and more: “We have one fun food drive campaign called Can the CEO, where the goal is to fill the CEO’s office with so much food that he or she can’t get inside.”

Move for Hunger
Red Bank, N.J.
Collects non-perishable, unopened food and donates it to local food banks