Partner Spotlight: Pockitship and Community Plates

As a nonprofit, partnering with outside organizations is crucial to our success. Over the years, we’ve been lucky to work with some amazing people and services who have helped us work towards our mission of building a brighter future for all DC residents. Today, we’d like to spotlight two of our recent partners who are revolutionizing how people donate food.

Pockitship is an on-demand pickup and delivery company that specializes in transporting large items, such as the 3,000 (yes, thousand!) sandwiches they recently delivered straight to our prep kitchen. These sandwiches will go out on McKenna’s Wagon, our free mobile food truck that has been feeding our homeless neighbors daily since 1983. The importance of this sandwich delivery cannot be understated–by saving time and money with Pockitship, we can devote our resources to working directly with children and families in DC.

One of the biggest barriers to donating food is transportation. Community Plates, a national food rescue platform, goes a long way to solve that problem by enlisting volunteers who use their own cars (and bikes!) to directly deliver excess food (from restaurants, grocers, caterers, schools, and farmers markets) to organizations in service of the community. Using an app, volunteers self-select food “runs” that fit their schedules, usually taking no more than 30 minutes. Their DC site is newly up and running, and we’ve been thrilled with their service!

Interested in becoming a Community Plates food rescuer? Sign up here, or contact the DC Site Director, Kate Urbank at katharine@communityplates.org.

Thank you to these two amazing and innovative companies for standing with DC families and helping us move the needle on hunger and food insecurity!