2025 Food Heroes

Ali focuses her work on enhancing the Packer Pantry and Clothing Closet, a student-led group that brings together several different programs that provide food, clothing, and personal items for students and families in need. She helps organize volunteers and shares the pantry’s story with the community. She implemented an online ordering form to optimize pantry usage, which inventories items and provides ease of product pick up for students.

Angelina & Advika co-founded Compostology, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing food waste composting, recovery, and prevention programs to every school in Montgomery County, Maryland. The organization seeks to simultaneously tackle food waste, hunger, and an inequitable K-12 educational opportunity. The pair have led postcard campaigns at 20+ schools and lobbied at the Maryland General Assembly. Their efforts helped pass SB 124, a state bill that allocated $1.25 million in grant funding for K-12 schools to start their own composting and food recovery programs.

Atreya works with the USDA and University of Florida on honeybee conservation through his organization, Save Our Bees. His research targets the small hive beetle, one of the most destructive pests threatening pollinators. He developed an eco-friendly beer-based pesticide blend that is 4,754 times cheaper than the leading pesticide. His innovation has the potential to save the beekeeping industry over $1 billion annually and successfully eradicated infestations in field trials without harming pollinators.

Bella is the co-founder of Living Outside, a nonprofit that creates care packages with essential food and clothing items to hand out to those in need. Today, Bella has grown the organization into 20 youth-led chapters worldwide, including in Nigeria, Benin, Haiti, and Peru. She provides seed funding and mentorship and has distributed more than 6,000 care bags. She has also raised over $8,000 in monetary donations and hosted more than 30 events, impacting thousands of homeless individuals.

Bruce is the co-founder of the Joshua’s Heart Foundation (JHF) Connecticut Junior Advisory Board, a youth-led group of middle and high school students. They organize and run their own projects to combat hunger and poverty, through food drives, school supply collections, and book donations to local schools. Inspired by JHS’s grocery distribution model, he expanded the organization’s mission into his home state. As a founding member, Bruce has helped distribute over 7 million pounds of food, serving more than 6 million meals. As head of the partners & sponsors team, he engaged corporate donors and helped raise over $43,000, impacting more than 1,500 families.

Chris (CJ) started Blankies 4 My Buddies, a nonprofit that delivers blankets to those dealing with difficult situations like illness, loss, grief, food insecurity, and homelessness. He started his project to support others after his family experienced a difficult pregnancy loss, channeling his grief to address sadness and situations like food insecurity. CJ hosts events that seek to show love through meals, blankets, and other means of support. To date, he has helped over 5,000 families through his annual The Giving Bowl event, a youth football tournament that promotes giving by inviting attending families to pick up essential items like food, cold-weather gear, and toys.

Hunter founded A Taste of Home, Inc, a nonprofit that solves the dual problem of reducing food waste and food insecurity in Northern Virginia by retrieving unsold food and delivering it to shelters. He contacts companies for food donations, which he picks up and brings to the shelter. His efforts led to the diversion of 1 million meals from landfills. He has also raised over $60,000 in donations to purchase the most requested items the shelter rarely receives. He encourages other teens to participate by offering volunteer hours for every 10 to-go meals a volunteer makes and donates.

Laura started Feeding the Fosters which provides meals and unique dining experiences (such as trips to hibachi restaurants) for foster children in the Tampa area. The nonprofit has prepared nearly 40,000 individual meals with the help of more than 2,500 volunteers and raised over $300,000 through grants, donations, and fundraisers, allowing the group to use a commercial kitchen.