This video highlights the impactful work of Evan, a college student from Philadelphia, who started an organization called Sharing Excess to address food waste and help people in need. The organization collects and redistributes surplus food to communities, rescuing over 14 million pounds of food and providing meals to millions of people. With the support of Beast Philanthropy, Sharing Excess expanded operations and acquired the Hunts Point produce market, aiming to provide tens of millions of meals to food insecure individuals across America. The video also acknowledges the support of organizations like Robin Hood Charities and encourages viewers to download the Ibotta app to support initiatives like Sharing Excess.
Key Insights:
- Over one-third of the 241 million tons of food produced in the USA each year goes to waste, amounting to 150 billion potential meals.
- Evan, a college student, started rescuing leftover meal swipes from his dining account to feed the homeless in Philadelphia.
- Sharing Excess, Evan’s organization, rescues and redistributes food that would otherwise go to waste.
- Beast Philanthropy partnered with Sharing Excess to help them establish an operation that provides tens of millions of meals to food insecure people.
- Sharing Excess has rescued over 14 million pounds of food and distributed it to communities in neighboring states.
- They acquired the Hunts Point produce market in New York City, which is three times larger than their facility in Philadelphia.
- With Hunts Point secured, Sharing Excess conducted their biggest distribution in New York City.
- The ibotta app is a sponsor of the video and gives real cashback on food purchases, helping communities and providing free meals on Thanksgiving.
- Robin Hood Charities helped support the expansion of Sharing Excess into New York City.
- Sharing Excess aims to make food recovery a common practice worldwide and has already rescued over 30 million pounds of food.
Transcript
What if I told you that this card alone has saved over 3 million people from malnutrition? Let me explain. 241 million tons of food is produced in the USA every year, and what is frightening is that more than one-third of it goes to waste. This means that 150 billion potential meals are being thrown into landfill while 44 million Americans live with limited access to food. And what’s puzzling is that it’s taken this long for someone to find a solution to this problem.
Meet Evan, a college kid from Philadelphia. I originally started just as a student with leftover meal swipes in my dining account, and I realized as I was getting close to the end of the term, I had 50 meals left that I knew I wasn’t going to be able to use. I just had a pit in my stomach thinking about all of those meals going to waste. I decided to swipe out all those meals and put them in the back of my car. I had an entire car filled with leftover meal swipes. This is all going to go to feed homeless people today all throughout Philadelphia. This may be the only meal that they have that day.
It took me a couple of years to kind of build up this moment. Then everyone became a part of it. I kind of had that first inkling that this could be something that a lot of other people want to join on to as well. This was the start of Evan’s organization, Sharing Excess, whose mission is to rescue and collect food that would otherwise go to waste and redistribute it for free to people in need all around Philadelphia.
Behind me is our first warehouse. It used to be a boxing gym, and we turned it into this makeshift distribution facility where we learned how to move larger amounts of food. This is really where it all began. But the cost of maintaining this operation became extremely expensive and nearly impossible for Evan and his small team to sustain alone. There’s no money in this. I have to figure out a way to pay rent, put food on the table for myself, even if my dream is to put food on the tables of everyone else. All of this work just goes for nothing, and I have to start all over again.
That’s where we reached out to Beast Philanthropy, and we pitched this wild idea: hey, we want to break the record for the world’s largest food distribution with Beast Philanthropy. So, I flew Darren to Philadelphia to check out the current state of their operation, where he joined Evan for one of their local weekend distributions. This is Malcolm X Park. We’ve been distributing here every Saturday for the last 3 years. It’s become a regular routine for hundreds of families to come out here and get the groceries that they need every weekend.
After witnessing everything that Evan had done to help this community, it didn’t take Darren an hour to know that we had to commit to partnering with Sharing Excess to help them achieve their goal of feeding as many people as possible. Together, we are going to be able to establish an operation that is going to provide tens of millions of meals to food-insecure people around America.
So, Evan gave Darren a tour of their existing warehouse at the largest produce market in the Mid-Atlantic region. You have 18 of the largest produce vendors in the 700,000 ft warehouse. We started to grow into a real company, and now we have over 30 employees and we’re rescuing food in 19 different states. All of the food that we receive, none of it has to go to waste in a landfill. And we’ve created a sorting operation downstairs where we’re able to go through each and every one of those boxes, pick out the one or two bad tomatoes that we see in a box, and get the rest of the great food that’s still edible out to communities that same day.
Since starting their operations at this distribution center, Sharing Excess has just rescued over 14 million pounds of food at this facility alone and redistributed it to communities in neighboring states. However, Evan had set his sights on a much bigger goal. So, we took on our biggest feat yet, helping Sharing Excess acquire Hunts Point Produce Market, the largest produce market in the world in New York City. And that operation is going to be three times larger than the one that we have in Philly.
So, Darren and Evan traveled to New York to officially open their distribution at Hunts Point. When I first walked through the doors and I saw just the sheer magnitude of this place, I literally felt like an ant. It’s so cool to finally be in a place that has enough food for us to actually make a huge dent in the problem. After a year of planning and preparation, it was finally time to open the recovery center at Hunts Point. Alright, Darren, it’s taken us a long time, but we’re finally here. Let’s do this.
After cutting the ribbon with Evan, today I realized just how impactful this program is about to be. This is just the very beginning of something exceptional. It’s taken so much time to get here, and to just know that this team put everything together to make it possible, and to now see it come true, I can’t even express the feeling.
With Hunts Point officially secured, it was time for Sharing Excess to do their biggest distribution yet and the first one they had ever done in New York City. This is the Anne Hutchinson School, an elementary school in the Bronx, and this is our first time ever distributing in New York City. We’re so excited to finally be able to feed New Yorkers with the operation that we have, that we started at Hunts Point, and now we can get that fresh produce out to communities like you see here.
When we first started Beast Philanthropy just 2 and 1/2 years ago, our goal was to feed 400,000 meals in the first year. Now we’ll be doing just over 2 million meals a month, and this is just the beginning. So many people came out, literally hundreds of people from all across the community, and that’s what we love to see. We love to see people coming together over the shared value of food. Just to see the look on the kids‘ faces when they got those meals, man, it just warmed my heart.
You love free food, let me hear you say yeah! Yeah! Honestly, I didn’t expect this for my life, but it’s become my entire life’s purpose. When I started Sharing Excess, I didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew that this was something that felt good and it felt good to do something good for other people. So far, we’ve rescued over 30 million pounds of food, but really, our journey has just begun. Working with organizations like Beast Philanthropy, we hope to bring this impact to countries all over the world and make sure Sharing Excess is a common practice for humanity everywhere.
If I could start something, anyone could start something. And in the time it has taken you to watch this video, 280 lbs of food has already been rescued by Beast Philanthropy and Sharing Excess. It is because of that we are able to continue to support organizations like Sharing Excess that make a difference all around the world. And I just want you to know that I’m incredibly grateful for all of you. Also, if you don’t subscribe, I will blow up your phone, so do it right now!
