The New Jersey-based Lowy’s Moving Service has been in business for nearly a hundred years. The successful small business had been handed down from Adam Lowy’s uncle and father to him. In 2009, Adam had an idea of how the company could do good.
Anyone who has moved in their life knows that after all the pots and pans are boxed, there always seem to be trash bags filled with unused canned goods, pasta, sauces, and grains. Of course, no one intends to be wasteful, but in the chaos of a move, those valuable items tend to fall by the wayside and right into the dumpster. Starting small, Adam focused on saving the nonperishable items that usually went to waste when people moved.
Lowy began gently asking his clients, who at the time were solely in New Jersey, if they had nonperishables they were planning on tossing while the moving crew got to work. Many were relieved and excited to pass along these items somewhere besides the garbage bag. Quickly, Lowy’s Moving Service took on a new role: a conduit for food donations from people who were relocating to local food banks.
Adam’s vision of bettering the world through this small act quickly gained traction and he established a seamless process for donations as his company’s numbers grew exponentially. In his first month, Move For Hunger shuttled an impressive 300+ pounds of food to local food banks that would otherwise have been lost.
“If one company could have this kind of impact,” writes Adam, “what could an entire network of moving companies do?”
Adam started to crunch the numbers. On average, 33 million Americans relocate each year. If Adam could garner just one pound of food from each household that was moving, that would yield 27.5 million meals for those in need each year (based on an average meal weight of 1.2 pounds).
Lowy’s Moving Service had always focused on making the relocation process stress-free for its clients. Starting this offshoot to help relieve the stress millions of Americans face each day in finding their next meal seemed like a natural next step.
Adam’s innovative and entrepreneurial spirit was instilled in him by his father and uncle, they also passed along a passion for advancing transportation business forward. While some food pantries have small vans or trucks that can make occasional pickups based on volunteer availability and funds, logistics remain cost-prohibitive and time-consuming for these charities strapped for cash and volunteer hours. “Our unique partnership with the relocation industry provides us with access to trucks and drivers nationwide,” reflects Lowy’s team.
Move For Hunger’s numbers continue to grow as the moving service-turned-charity has become a well-known pillar of philanthropy in the United States’ food donation world. In 2020, it facilitated the donation of over 5 million pounds of food and organized over 700 standalone food drives. Through relocation-driven food donations alone (excluding food drives), they have given over 4.16 million Americans a meal that would otherwise have been lost.
Today, Move for Hunger partners with over 1,050 moving companies, over 1,250 apartment communities, and countless local food pantries through. The organization is now in all 50 states and Canada while continuing to grow to other locations.
