Kids Against Hunger: Making an Impact in Marple and Around the World

Charity Spotlight by Holly Stupak

Photos courtesy of Heather Griesser LaPierre

In 2015, Heather Griesser LaPierre started packing meals for the Kids Against Hunger (KAH) organization, out of her home in Broomall. Little did she know that five years later, she and an army of volunteers would have packed over 2,000,000 meals, of which, 500,000 were donated from her real estate team, which includes herself and her mother and father!

Heather, a full time local realtor since 2002, wanted to find a way to give back to the community and start her own or find a nonprofit organization where entire families could be involved as volunteers and they could make an impact on their community and throughout the world. Knowing that one in six U.S. children suffer from malnourishment, her family knew they wanted to do something to help hungry children, especially those in their own community. Heather became so passionate about KAH’s mission that in 2015, she started her own satellite and serves as Founder and Director of KAH Philadelphia.

KAH is a Nebraska-based nonprofit organization with 40 U.S. locations and two in Canada. Their mission is “to provide fully nutritious food to impoverished children and families around the world… and around the corner.” Donations enable KAH to provide their own brand of ultra-nutritious dry packaged meals. KAH meals include International rice, macaroni and cheese, pasta with tomato sauce, oatmeal, and cheesy rice. Each meal package provides six nutritionally complete servings. The meals are simple to prepare, easily digestible and a rich source of protein, carbohydrates and vitamins.

In September 2019, KAH Philadelphia (KAHP) moved to their Broomall location on Sussex Boulevard. It’s open five days a week, and can hold up to 50 volunteers at a time. KAHP has partnered with Philabundance for its Pack the Backpacks program. Every month, 8,750 backpacks are packed with a total of 210,000 meals! All those meals are distributed locally, to schools with undernourished children, and to food banks and churches.

The Marple Police Department generously donated their time last month, to pack meals for KAHP.

KAHP volunteers include local high school sports teams, clubs, Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, organizations like Best Buddies, and also individuals such as empty nesters and families with young children. Packing KAH meals offers a job for everyone, so even youngsters can help with scooping, weighing, sealing bags, or packing the boxes. On a typical weekend, 20,000 or more meals can be packed.

KAH volunteers after a successful day of packing

“When people come in to pack meals, they often come in as strangers, but they leave as friends,” Heather said. Most people who come in have heard of KAHP by word of mouth or on social media. If Heather asks for volunteers on Facebook, it’s remarkable to see the number of people who are willing to step up, even at the last minute.

Any type of community organization can host a KAHP fundraiser at which their members and supporters pack meals together, at their own location, for just 30 cents per meal. Heather has even traveled to New York, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and Boston for fundraisers. Meals packed at such (packing events) fundraisers are shipped internationally, to Puerto Rico and countries such as Haiti, Nepal, the Bahamas, Ukraine and Greece.

The LaPierre family after packing 30,000 meals for local food banks

Heather’s husband, Bernie, usually helps Heather at KAHP, along with their three children: Wesley (18), Jacob (14), and Caitlyn (11). Heather has also enlisted the help of her close friend and Broomall resident, Sarah Colluci, who travels with Heather to out-of-state fundraising events. “I think the reason so many people volunteer,” said Heather, “is because they discover that they’re feeding two types of hunger: The hunger of the children whom we’re feeding, and also the hunger from within, to give back.”

Heather said that she’s been passionate about volunteering since 5th grade, when she used her babysitting money to sponsor a child through the Children’s International organization, and she continued to do volunteer work through high school. She passed on her passion for volunteering to her children, and they all love how family-friendly KAH volunteer opportunities are.

KAH Philadelphia hopes to increase the number of local schools to whom they distribute meals. For more information about how to sign up as a volunteer visit www.KAHPhiladelphia.org.