While millennials may be known for their obsession with technology, two of them are putting their know how to the good cause of helping to end hunger.
In the aptly titled piece “Hacking Hunger,” National Journal’s Ron Fournier profiled Maria Rose Belding, a 20-year old sophomore at American University and Grant Nelson, a law student at George Washington University.
Maria Rose has for too long lamented the waste of good intentions in feeding the hungry, as the result of spoiled food. That’s why she and Grant teamed up to form Matching Excess and Need for Stability, or MEANS, which Fournier described as “an electronic platform that connects food pantries with people and institutions with surplus food.”
Fournier also described how their project works:
- The holder of surplus food reports the type and amount of food it wants to give away. An email notifies them when a food pantry says it can claim and distribute the food.
- Food pantries use the site to log their needs and claim the food.
The website is welcoming and user friendly. There are opportunities to sign up to join MEANS, as well as a Food Bank Directory.
There’s the example of Loudon County, Va., where instead of throwing out 3,600 leftover lunches the organizers of a community fear reported the lunches to MEANS. A food pantry with a need was able to then claim the boxes in a matter of hours.
What’s even more encouraging about Maria Rose and Grant’s teaming up is that they come from opposite ends of the political spectrum. Maria Rose is liberal; Grant is conservative. Both see an opportunity to do more than what the government can provide:
That’s because they’re not baby boomers. They’re part of a generation shaped by economic tumult, technological advances, and war: More than past generations, millennials seek purpose in life and they want to witness vast change, or disruption, to the nation’s institutions. Technology gives them the power to make both happen.
Their efforts have not gone unnoticed by others, and MEANS was the first nonprofit to win the 2015 George Washington Business Plan Competition.
