GIVING BACK: Feed Our Vets

Blog

September 09, 2024

Each issue, the editorial staff of Military Embedded Systems will highlight a different organization that benefits the military, veterans, and their families. We are honored to cover the technology that protects those who protect us every day.

This issue we are highlighting Feed Our Vets, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to help U.S. veterans and their families who experience food insecurity.

Feed Our Vets was founded in 2008 by Navy veteran and Vernon Center, New York, postmaster Rich Synek. One day, a World War II veteran came into Rich’s post office and bought a single stamp. When Rich asked him why he didn’t buy a book of stamps, the man confessed that he and his wife only had enough money to eat properly for two weeks out of each month, and that the last few days of the month, the couple had nothing to eat at all. Following that incident, the Syneks realized the pervasive nature of food insecurity for veterans and families and established the first Feed Our Vets food pantry. According to information from Feed Our Vets, more than 130,000 veterans are unhoused and unfed on any given night in the U.S. and one in three homeless people in the country is a U.S. military veteran.

As of 2023, the organization reported providing food assistance to more than 43,000 veterans and families, with facilities and partners to assist both veterans and active-duty military personnel in 39 states. Feed Our Vets organizes community food pantries to provide free food distribution to veterans and families, distributes related goods and enables access to other services, and facilitates public education and outreach around the issue of hunger in the U.S.

The organization states that while running a brick-and-mortar pantry in every state is impossible because of high operating costs, it does coordinate a food-purchase gift-card program for veterans and personnel who live in states and communities that do not currently have a pantry.

For additional information, visit https://feedourvets.org/.