Everyone needs access to nutritious food to thrive. Yet, despite great strides and advancements made to achieve food security in America, our nation's hunger crisis is heartbreaking and unacceptable.The number of people living in food insecure households in the United States in 2022 increased to 44 million, including 13 million children, according to a report released October 2023 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Feeding America is the largest hunger-relief organization in the United States, distributing 5.3 billion meals in fiscal year 2023—but our work in the movement to end hunger extends beyond providing food.
Through continued partnership and collaboration with food banks, food pantries, meal programs and community-based organizations across the country, we invest in programs and initiatives—guided by the voices of people facing hunger—to advance our vision of an America where no one is hungry. This means we’re addressing racial and geographic disparities by investing in community partners and food banks that are working together to remove systemic barriers. This means increasing food security and neighbors’ access to nutritious and culturally preferred foods, especially in communities of color. We’re also advancing transformative practices through the Feeding America network to build better pathways for neighbors’ economic well-being, including forging workforce development partnerships that lead to quality jobs for people, among other change-driving priorities at the national and local levels we’re focused.
We work in partnership with donors like entrepreneur and bestselling author Tony Robbins, who is committed to helping the tens of millions of people in America, and around the world, who experience food insecurity gain access to the food and resources they say they need to thrive.
“As an 11-year-old boy, I experienced the kindness of a stranger who knocked on my family’s door and shared two giant bags of groceries and an uncooked frozen turkey with our struggling family at Thanksgiving,” Mr. Robbins recalled. “My life changed after that knock. Ever since that moment, I have understood the power that the kindness and generosity of strangers can have to support the less fortunate and change the course of people’s lives.”
In 2014, after watching the U.S. Congress make massive cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Mr. Robbins increased his partnership with Feeding America, launching the 100 Million Meals Challenge. Soon thereafter, in 2019, Mr. Robbins and Feeding America decided this success meant even more good could be done, increasing the ambitious initial goal, this time aiming for a first-of-its-kind 10-year 1 Billion Meals Challenge. In 2023- nearly two years ahead of its 2025 target date—the partnership achieved its historic milestone thanks to the generosity of thousands of donors who responded and donated to meet his rallying call.
“At the start, did I think one day I, with the help of many giving strangers, would be feeding millions? No. I started with two families. The next year, four and then eight. If we all band together as a society, we truly can solve food insecurity for all through building transformative philanthropic efforts at scale,” said Mr. Robbins, a vocal ally in the movement to end hunger.
While the significant milestone of the 1 Billion Meals Challenge has been achieved, our work to end hunger in America continues. Mr. Robbins' partnership with Feeding America continues because he knows we must accelerate our collective efforts—uniting people facing hunger, community leaders, advocates, policymakers, companies, organizations and nonprofits—to realize permanent food security in every community across the country.
Achieving food security in the U.S. and helping hardworking people gain access to the meals they need is a lifelong mission of Mr. Robbins. “That stranger’s act of unselfish giving and the memory of what it feels like to not aways know where your next healthy meal may come from fuels my calling to aid those facing immediate hunger and solving longer-term food insecurity for all humankind,” said Mr. Robbins, now age 63.
Join with us in the movement to end hunger in the U.S.
