Today we’d like to introduce you to Powell Harris
Hi Powell, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Our organization began in 2017 in Atlanta, GA as a service project among a small group of friends from Georgia Tech. After several months of gathering together every Saturday morning to provide food for the homeless population of Hurt Park downtown, more of the local community became inspired to help. In 2019, Food4Lives upgraded to a mid-sized catering kitchen in West Midtown, which served seven days a week until May 2024, totaling 470,000 plates of food. There are now branches of Food4Lives operating weekly in 7 cities in the USA: Hartford and Middleton CT, Richmond VA, Charlotte NC, and Atlanta and Athens GA.
In 2024, after reviewing our expenses and with community input, we decided to follow a remote model to reduce cost and engage more volunteers. We are now serving just as many meals (about 1000/week) across the greater atlanta area, relying on families, community organizations, and Food4Lives student service clubs to find and serve people in need. Our story has been wonderfully grassroots-driven, and naturally developed. We now have our niche in the constellation of nonprofits serving the poor, and we have focused on three elements: we serve vegetarian meals that are always fresh cooked and hand delivered. Our vision is to engage every citizen in giving to transform the world in service.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has been very difficult! We faced total shutdown during the COVID Pandemic due to shortage of staffing and donations to manage our kitchen. Our space was flooded by storms, we had break-ins and always close financial management to make ends meet. But our community grew stronger through these challenges and somehow we always found grace in our progress. We always seemed to meet the right individuals to help us overcome our crises. It has taught us a lot of humility and patience.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a scientist at heart and I love people. I’m a trained data scientist, but in this role I’ve gotten to dig deep into the people behind the data. We boil the problems down to numbers and we miss the obvious stuff. I know the city wants to rehouse homeless people as fast as they can, but I have spent months getting to know a few dozen of the city’s homeless personally, and sometimes it’s more simple than that. I know one guy who is a German citizen, but is miles of paperwork away from getting home. Does he need a house in Atlanta, GA? Not exactly.
My favorite part of my work in the last few years, to my surprise, has been hosting volunteer groups. We hosted companies like Home Depot, Microsoft, Meta, church groups from Alabama to Athens, and social fraternities from deep Atlanta roots like Morehouse to immigrant groups and social clubs. It’s really a rare place to see a cross section of this wonderful city. I think we’ve done a really great job of simplifying our message to share with a broad spectrum of people. As a result, we got miraculous help from all kinds of people, from kitchen equipment, fixing our forklift, legal help, to a lot of food.
I think I am known for my consistency – I have served the homeless every Saturday for nearly 7 years straight. As a young adult it was cool to find that I could create that kind of stability for myself through dedication to a cause, and as I’ve seen community build around us it’s been really gratifying. The secret of course, is that wonderful and amazing people are attracted to this kind of work, so when you plop yourself in the middle of it, you suddenly are surrounded by incredible people. That has been the greatest blessing, and I’ve learned so much from all of the volunteers and all of the unhoused people too.
It’s not that I don’t like to do other things on the weekend, it’s just that they are real people out there, and when you hear how grateful they are, it’s impossible to stay away. I mean not just hear how grateful they are, but see it in their face and feel it. It’s important the work we do, and I’m reminded of that not every day but often enough to keep working to make sure that someone is out there checking on the thousands of neighbors living that way.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
I would say that love is the most important part, because it’s the soul of an organization who’s mission is boundless and can never really be finished. It’s the love that makes the organization work, because so many people are giving selflessly every week that the work is able to go on. All the challenges we’ve faced have been overcome by the love and deep compassion of the Atlanta community, and that is something that can’t be faked. People have to come and feel the connection that the volunteers have, that is put into our food, and that radiates through the communities we work with.
Pricing:
- $250 “Adpot a Day” Program sponsors one day of service (100 fresh meals). The link is on the website at https://donorbox.org/adopt-a-day
Contact Info:
- Website: https://food4lives.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/food4livesatl
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Food4Livesatl
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/food4lives/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@food4lives
Image Credits
Jordan Lane
Justin Melson
Neeraj Rao
