Replate recently received insight from our recipient partner, Hack the Hood, on how nutritious food donations help support the youth programs they offer. Communication Manager, Christine Cueto, shares more on this week’s Community Story!

What does Hack the Hood do?

I like to say we work to make opportunity equal. What we do is introduce tech opportunities to at-promise youth of color in Oakland. We do this by providing bootcamps and after school programs that teach young people development and professional skills. We also have students develop a website for small businesses. It’s very much community centered.

Why are food donations important to the people in your community?

We are a youth program and we always provide food for our youth, especially for the spring and summer boot camps. It’s great because it really helps us on the backend, financially. I really appreciate it because it gives our youth a lot of options other than fast food. It gives our students a healthier option, rather than ordering pizza, chicken, or tacos. And it’s minimizing food waste.

Do you have any stories of how donations have impacted your organization or people in the community?

For me, Replate was able to donate food for Hack The Hood & Ad2 San Francisco event that did help a lot with the quality of the event. I feel that food brings people together, and if you have a good quality type of food, everyone is going to be able to enjoy it. I saw a lot of the people were really satisfied. I feel like the food that was donated was definitely a plus!

For the students, it’s interesting to see, given the demographics, a lot of them are not used to the types of food that is served. Most of them are getting basic fast food. At the start a lot of them were like “what is is this? I’m not used to this.” As the program progresses, they enjoy it and they look forward to the next meal of the day.

How can anyone support Hack the Hood?

We definitely have different opportunities of supporting Hack the Hood! We love donations, as one time or monthly in-kind. We’ve had a lot of companies donate laptops. We have volunteer opportunities and are looking for tech companies to partner with to give youth field trips. And, we're looking for people to be career mentor to our students.

Support and follow Hack the Hood’s work on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. If you’d like to start donating your company’s surplus food or receive food, go to replate.org to sign up!