Grant Strategy

Our Grants at Work

“This is a passion thing with me,” says Rick Barrows, a man not much on titles but high on his leading role at the metro Denver Broncos Boys and Girls Club, a beneficiary of the Food Bank of the Rockies (FBR) which is a Share Our Strength grant recipient.

Rick and his 10 siblings stared hunger in the face as youngsters when the family’s food stamps ran out half-way through the month. The local Boys and Girls Club supported him through those tough times and helped him earn a civil engineering degree that he traded for his career running the club.

“Eighty percent of our kids come from families below the poverty level,” he explains. “Their parents are trying real hard, working two to three jobs at once. They need a safe place for their kids to go to do homework, learn a sport, get a hot meal.”

Because of FBR’s support, the club spends less money and time finding food and more on cultivating a caring, challenging and fun atmosphere for the 8,000 kids who spend an average 3-1/2 hours there on school days “learning to become responsible adults,” says Rick.

We Support Long-Term Solutions

This is the kind of work that our grants support: long-term solutions that improve access to nutritious food and healthy food choices. The kind of solutions that make the difference between feeding a family tonight and ensuring that they never have to worry about that next healthy meal

Share Our Strength’s grants strengthen the connection between families and the nutritious food they need. Share Our Strength provides grants to organizations in the United States and abroad that work successfully to fight hunger and poverty at every level. In particular, we support the work that helps make nutritious food accessible to the children and families who need it.

Since 1984, we have raised over $200 million through our fundraising to fight hunger in America and around the globe. We have granted critical funds to more than 1,000 of the most effective hunger-related organizations, sustaining their efforts and maximizing their capacity to deliver results.

Our Impact At Home

In the U.S., Share Our Strength provides grants to activate our national childhood hunger strategy and its supporting 10-point plan. The grants support three types of efforts:

• Our state partnerships to end childhood hunger
• Individual organizations throughout the country whose work aligns with one or more of the 10 points of our national plan to end childhood hunger.
• Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline cooking-based nutrition education program for low-income adults and kids.

Additionally, Share Our Strength has distributed more than $1.8 million in grants to help rebuild the food systems that were destroyed by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.

All of Share Our Strength’s culinary fundraising events — Taste of the Nation, Great American Bake Sale and Great American Dine Out — fund our domestic grants.

Our Grants Abroad

Internationally, Share Our Strength has granted more than $10.3 million to organizations in Ethiopia, Mexico, El Salvador and Haiti. Specifically, our grants help these organizations build sustainable solutions to underdevelopment, poverty and hunger.