D.C. Restaurant Owner’s Nonprofit Feeds Seniors and Military Families This Thanksgiving

In a story that highlights the giving spirit of the season, Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, Feed the Fridge, is providing Thanksgiving meals for seniors and military families in need this year. The charity, founded by the co-owner of Medium Rare restaurant, Mark Bucher, started the initiative during the pandemic to feed the hungry and keep small, local restaurants in business. Their mission is based on a win-win business model. The organization places fridges in the greater D.C. area and pays restaurants to fill them up with meals which are then given to the public for free.

“Feed the Fridge is built on the premise that ingredients and the food pantry model in this country need to be fixed. It’s not working as intended. People are still hungry. We spent more money and [have] given out more food ingredients during COVID than we ever have before,” Bucher told Fox News.

He further explained that when it comes to Thanksgiving meals, giving out raw turkeys just isn’t enough. “A little unintended consequence [is] that all these food banks, charities are giving out free, raw turkeys, [but] the recipients are scared to cook them, or they don’t know how to cook them, or they don’t have pots and pans to cook turkeys.”

Bucher stepped in and solved the problem by offering to deep fry turkeys for those in need. “We deep fry turkeys every year for people because it’s fun and because it allows us to cook a lot of turkeys in a very short period of time,” said Bucher. According to him, “hundreds if not thousands” of people have taken him up on his restaurant’s offer so far.

For the first time, Feed the Fridge will also feed 300 military families in the greater D.C. area who are struggling to make ends meet. “It’s silly that in a country where these soldiers might be on the front line tomorrow have to worry about the food that their wife, kids, or their families should get. We’re gonna take that out of their minds this year,” said Bucher.

The organization will also hand deliver 3,000 Thanksgiving meals for seniors living alone. Their current goal is to deliver one million meals through their strategic fridge-restaurant partnerships.