Three years ago, alumnus Adam Lowy could not picture himself returning to ASU to speak about an organization as its founder and executive director.
Lowy spoke to students and staff at Changemaker Central on the Tempe campus Tuesday about Move For Hunger and its impact.
Move For Hunger is an organization that collects food from people who are moving.
Lowy was invited back to ASU because of his inspirational story, community service program coordinator at the Memorial Union Mina Ahmad said in an email.
Lowy was inspired to create Move For Hunger after seeing the amount of food people would leave behind while he worked at his father’s moving company in his home state, New Jersey.
“We had no plans in making it this big national thing,” Lowy said. “We just saw it as this really easy way to give back.”
Lowey created Move For Hunger after he quit his marketing job at Mercedes-Benz.
“I felt like my degree was getting wasted and I was not getting utilized there,” he said.
Lowy graduated in 2008 from ASU with a degree in business marketing. After so much positive feedback, Move for Hunger expanded to 36 states in the U.S.
Move For Hunger has collected 370,000 tons of food for food banks around the nation so far.
During the previous summer, Move for Hunger had won a Do Something Award from VH1 and is in the running for a $1 million grant in Chase Community Giving contest.
Lowy said Move For Hunger has been successful because of the publicity he has received from those sorts of awards.
He said Move for Hunger also credits its success to its fun approach to get people to donate food.
“Our goal is to start engaging younger people to get involved,” Lowy said.
Move for Hunger has successfully engaged ASU students in the creation of T-shirts for last semester’s Undie Run. The T-shirts read, “Show us your cans.”
Lowy said the T-shirts spurred a lot of people to donate food at the event.
His techniques of community engagement inspired audience members.
Global health student Gozie Ibeji was intrigued by Move For Hunger’s involvement with local food banks.
“I think it’s innovative and inspiring the way he uses this concept to work with the food banks,” Ibeji said.
Ibeji, who is involved in Changemaker Central, said he thought it was great that Lowy came to visit ASU.
Ibeji said Changemaker Central should find a way to team up with his organization.
“This is the kind of programs we look for here at Changemaker Central,” Ibeji said.
Reach the reporter at shurst2@asu.edu
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