So for the last four years I have been promoting Grind Out Hunger, a campaign that targets the skateboarding youth to get involved with food drives and the Second Harvest Food Bank. The idea came to me four years ago when I was approached again to place a food donation barrel in my Santa Cruz Skate Shop…and I thought..”how can I get my customers to understand the need to help people that are not able to meet their needs”. That’s when Grind Out Hunger was born. I decided to not only give 30% discount to anyone that brought in 5 lbs of food, but I partnered up with the Second Harvest Food Bank to challenge the counties area high schools to collect the most food they could over the holiday period. The winner of the challenge would receive a $600 gift certificate to the Santa Cruz Skate Shop. That first year our program collected 40,000 pounds of food. Over the years we evolved the program, refined it and made it even better. This last year we extended our program to Jr High and Elementary school kids, and begun to actually go and speak at as many schools that would hear our vision of the Youth contributing and implementing our Grind Out Hunger campaign. I spoke to thousands of kids to motivate and dangle that carrot. The result was this years raising of 130,000 pounds of food!!!! I was moved to tears at the Second Harvest Annual Food Bank mixer when the totals were announced. I couldn’t believe we had managed to make this happen, our little idea had manifested into a living breathing entity. This year we also made a “Grind Out Hunger” skateboard that was sold for $100 donation all of which goes to the Second Harvest Food Bank (we sold quite a few of these, if you want to get one, dk at mediadescent dot com)I was awarded with the “Next Generation” award

for using alternative measures to help raise food and bring awareness to a group the Food Bank had been struggling to penetrate. We had dozens of schools participating and motivated…the goal for 2008-9 is to double that number to 250,000 pounds of food and to graduate the program to possibly franchise it out to other food banks to utilize. With the help of Andy and Christine at the Second Harvest Food Bank, “Grind Out Hunger” has legs and will become available in 2009-10 for use in other areas as we are going to be developing packets and DVD’s complete with instructions on how to acquire sponsors etc. It is my passion to make sure “Grind Out Hunger” goes nationwide and motivates the skaters of the USA to help out. Here is how it works

Grind Out Hunger campaign runs from October to December with the challenge to collect the most pounds of food per student (if you have 1400 kids and raise 14000 pounds of food that equals 10 pounds per student) by either collecting food or cash donations (every dollar equals 3 pounds of food).

High School’s win $600

Jr High School’s win $300

Elementary School’s win $300

Help us “Grind Out Hunger”

If you want to help out or want to sponsor our program please post a comment and we can begin email dialogue. No one in the USA should go hungry. Please visit our FaceBook cause for Grind Out Hunger and get involved.