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Hunger is still the #1 issue in America

Why I continue to partner with Feeding America to feed people and families in need

Posted by: Tony Robbins

Hi, it’s Tony. I want to share a short message with you about what I believe is still the #1 social issue in America: the hunger crisis.

One out of every 8 people in America – and 1 in 6 children – struggles with hunger. They are “food insecure,” which means that they have limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods. It means they do not have access, at times, to enough food to lead active, healthy lives – to do everything that they want to do in their day. Not enough energy to work, to grow, to flourish.

Imagine for a moment what that feels like. To feel tired, deeply fatigued and continuously running on empty. To want more in life, but not have the physical energy to work to obtain it.

Now think about living with a constant feeling of uncertainty, not knowing where your next meal is coming from. To go through your day without the basic comfort of having nutritious food available to you, with no control over what you can put in your body as fuel for your life. Imagine what it would feel like to have total insecurity over this basic need.

I know what that feels like.

I’m from Azusa, California, and I grew up in what the USDA calls a food-insecure household. Let me tell you what that means as a kid. It means opening the fridge when you come home from school and not having something to eat like most kids do. And it means knowing that your parents are scraping by from paycheck to paycheck, and that your family is just one unexpected expense away from not being able to put food on the table.

Many of you know that when I was 11, a total stranger showed up at our door at Thanksgiving and gave us a meal. Not a next-door neighbor, or distant family member – a complete stranger.

That changed my life because it changed my belief that no one cared about anybody else. I always did, but I thought I was the only one. And all of a sudden, I had this evidence that strangers, someone who wanted nothing from us, looked out for us on one of the more important days of the year. It was healing. It wasn’t the food. It was the caring that was healing. It made me realize if others care about me and my family that I don’t even know, then I need to care about them. And that day I decided I was going to find a way, somehow, someday, to give back and pay it forward.

So that’s what I did; I started taking action to start doing for others what they did for me. That’s why I started feeding people, beginning with just a few families but building up over the years to millions.

In the past three years, I’ve personally funded and raised enough money through matching donations to provide more than 300 million meals to hungry families in need, delivered through my partners at Feeding America. That’s more exciting to me than anything else I’ve done.

And now, we’ve mapped out a plan to provide 1 BILLION MEALS together by 2025.

I’ve donated 100% of the profits of my two personal finance books – MONEY: MASTER THE GAME and UNSHAKEABLE (which comes out in paperback on Sept 17th!) – to Feeding America, where 99 cents of every $1 gift goes right back into the programs, instead of into bureaucratic black holes and executive salaries. Through their nationwide network of 200 food banks, we provide food to 46 million people, including 12 million children and 7 million seniors.

Every $1 donated to Feeding America helps provide 10 meals to someone at risk of hunger – and for every dollar YOU donate, I MATCH it in-kind. So if you give $10, that’s not 100 meals, it’s 200. If you give $100, it’s 2,000 meals – that’s double the impact! You can contribute now through this dedicated site for the campaign.

As I always say, the secret to living is giving. Money, by itself, is so empty. It has no power except the power of your giving. If you give wholeheartedly, even when you feel you don’t have the money, I promise you will never have scarcity in your life.

Love and blessings,