🏁 Axios Finish Line: New food fix

Photo: Low tech | Monday, October 03, 2022

Open in app View in browser     Axios Finish Line By Mike Allen, Erica Pandey and Jim VandeHei ·Oct 03, 2022 Oct 03, 2022 Welcome back. Please send your self-improvement ideas to finishline@axios.com. Smart Brevity™ count: 438 words ... < 2 mins.     1 big thing: Food banks turn to tech Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios   Food banks are increasingly relying on donated services from DoorDash and Amazon to reach people who can't or won't make the trek to pick up groceries. DoorDash last week unveiled a partnership with 18 mayors that will provide funding for delivery and logistical expertise to help get donated food to people in need, Axios' Margaret Harding McGill reports. Instacart announced a pilot program with the Partnership for a Healthier America that will provide needy families with a restricted stipend to buy nutritious food, along with a free Instacart membership and waived delivery fees. The announcements were part of the White House's Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health — the first since 1969, during the Nixon administration. DoorDash's Project DASH, which provides local delivery services to food banks, has grown from 6,000 deliveries in 14 states and D.C. in 2018 to more than 1.5 million deliveries so far this year in 49 states and D.C. Amazon began a Community Delivery program — donating transportation and logistical support to food banks — in 2020. It's in 20 states + D.C., and is on track to deliver 315,000 boxes of food this year. 🧠 How it works: DoorDash pays its dashers for the deliveries. Some food banks subsidize costs, but the company largely foots the bill. 🔬 Zoom in: The Food Bank of Delaware says it's shifting its model from mass distribution sites to more home deliveries. Hunger-Free Pennsylvania is making about 6,000 deliveries a month to seniors via DoorDash, and said about 25% of its program is delivery now. That's expected to grow to 30% or 40%. "The seniors just love it," Sheila Christopher, executive director of Hunger-Free Pennsylvania, told Axios. "It makes life so much easier for them to just have someone drop off the box at their door." 🔭 Zoom out: Lack of reliable transportation was a pre-pandemic problem for people experiencing food scarcity. COVID increased that, Minerva Delgado of the Alliance to End Hunger told Axios. Food banks find it difficult to reach homebound seniors, parents of young children or those who must isolate due to illness. 🔮 DoorDash intends to expand into new communities. But Brittany Graunke, DoorDash Drive director, told Axios the company is also looking at how it can partner with other organizations. Share this story.     A message from Axios Smarter business communications     We took the lessons — and data — of Axios' best writers and built an easy-to-use platform to plan, write, and send essential business information. It's helped us streamline our internal communications and build an award-winning company and culture. Learn more.     2. 🇺🇦 The old-fashioned way Photo: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images These volunteers are passing a box of food across the destroyed bridge at the Oskil River in Kupiansk, eastern Ukraine, last week. Why it matters: Most help for the world's hungry still comes via low tech — hand to hand.   Are you a fan of this email format? It's called Smart Brevity®. Over 300 orgs use it — in a tool called Axios HQ — to drive productivity with clearer workplace communications.   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. If you're interested in advertising, learn more here. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Axios, 3100 Clarendon B‌lvd, Arlington VA 22201   You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios. Change your preferences or unsubscribe here.   Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now to get Axios in your inbox.   Follow Axios on social media: