We're Giving Away 30 Million in Free Food.

We want to take you on a behind-the-scenes look into some of our projects. Often what our audience sees in our films on YouTube is just a small fraction of what goes into our efforts to make the world a better place. The team at Beast Philanthropy can be working for over a year on some of the projects, to guarantee that we provide those in need with the best possible care. We want to share with you all of the unforeseen challenges, the hidden triumphs, and the untold stories that shape Beast Philanthropy and our mission to change the world.

Just last year, we adopted an orphanage in South Africa and powered a remote island in Colombia as well as a village in Zambia. We brought water to Kenya and paid for a free hospital in the Philippines. We helped paralyzed dogs run in Thailand and helped acquire a produce market to help feed the hungry in New York, and recently we built a school in Cameroon, and a town in Guatemala!

Let’s learn a bit more about one of our biggest projects to date; ‘We’re Giving Away $30 Million In Free Food’’; In this video, we tell the story of Evan Ehlers and how we joined forces with his organisation Sharing Excess to help them acquire one of the world's largest food markets in New York. Our goal was to help support them in their mission to rescue surplus food and redirect it to those in need. This move enables them to expand their operations, towards their goal of national distribution, in an attempt to reach every corner of America. With this new facility, we're taking a significant step towards a future where no one goes hungry.

Now let’s dive behind the scenes and learn about the project from our Executive Director; Darren Margolias .

How did this project start and what was the idea driving the work?

We started the conversation with Sharing Excess after I'd been introduced to Evan Ehlers on a Zoom Call and I was just amazed listening to him talk. When we hung up the phone, I emailed him and asked him to call me for a one-on-one, and then after he called me I asked him to fly down to Greenville the very next day, which I have never done before and I've never done since. I was just like, okay, this kid's exceptional. I want to meet him and see what we can do to work together. And so we started a partnership where we were going to help them expand. Our original plan with the food services operation side of Beast Philanthropy was that we were going to open up mobile distribution hubs, like the one that we're using in Greenville, but across the country. However, over the last year and a half, getting enough food to feed the communities has been our biggest challenge. So I didn't want to invest money in building additional distribution capacity where there wasn't enough food supply to utilize the existing distribution capacity. And that’s not a problem just for ourselves, it’s a problem for food service organisations across the country.

And so after meeting with Evan and finding out more about what he’s doing with Sharing Excess and this amazing idea. We decided instead of building, you know, mobile food banks, we decided to invest in his food recovery and distribution operations, so that we could not just procure more food for ourselves, but help other food banks and food pantries around the country get more food to distribute to their communities. This set into motion the idea of acquiring one of the world's largest food markets in New York.

Sharing Excess is a national non-profit that rescues and delivers surplus food to communities in need. Despite the fact that 44 million people in the country face food insecurity, nearly 40% of the nation's food supply goes to waste. They believe that surplus food can be a solution to scarcity, and are dedicated to connecting surplus food from grocery stores, restaurants, wholesalers, and farmers to those in need.

What were some of the challenges you faced??

The biggest hurdle in this project has actually been that not everybody wants to find solutions. There's a lot of people that are very ingrained in the way that they think and they don't like to see people come in and try new things. So unfortunately that was one of them. And then this being one of our biggest projects to date. It took a lot of hard work putting together all of the pieces to not only acquire Hunts Point but also the launch. Just the general enormity of this project was a challenge, from raising the funds to opening it up, figuring out how we were actually going to do it, sorting out all of the political pieces that needed to get done and all in a short matter of time. The two teams really had to come together on this one and I’m proud of what we achieved.

What do you hope your audience takes away from this collaboration?

In the video, our objective was to inspire others through Evan’s story and show the impact of what, one small act of kindness can lead to, how together we can turn the tide on food waste, and ensure no one goes to bed hungry, and build a world where excess becomes an opportunity to make a positive impact. When we uploaded the video to our Youtube we were overwhelmed with the responses to it. It was near Thanksgiving in the U.S. and we received stories from parents of how after dinner, kids wanted to share their leftovers with the homeless in their neighbourhood.

Did you meet the specific goals you set out to achieve?

We wanted to help Sharing Excess expand its operation on a national scale, [and the acquisition of Hunts Point Food Market now allows them to distribute and rescue food in every corner of America]. We wanted to highlight to our audience the significant problems regarding food waste in our country…

The USA produces a whopping 241 million tonnes of food annually, and more than ? of it goes to waste. That's 150 billion meals tossed into landfills while 44 million Americans struggle with limited access to food.

Together, Beast Philanthropy and Sharing Excess managed to rescue over 10 million pounds of food last year alone. We are immensely proud of the remarkable growth they've achieved. We can all do our part in securing a future where no one goes hungry.

Thank you for supporting us, and leave a comment if you enjoyed our Behind-The-Scenes on ‘We’re Giving Away $30 Million in Free Food’.

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