Written by Mark Hostutler - Editor, American Community Journals

One of the most impactful nonprofits in the Delaware Valley began with just a random act of kindness.

It was early December of 2016, toward the end of another semester for Drexel University student Evan Ehlers. The junior was faced with a dilemma familiar to many college students: an excess of dining hall swipes that would soon expire.

Rather than let them vanish before he returned home to Westchester County, New York for winter break, Ehlers made a spur-of-the-moment decision that would change the course of his life — and ultimately reshape how surplus food is shared in Philadelphia and beyond.

He swiped out 50 meals in one night; loaded soups, salads, and sandwiches into the same plastic bins he used to move into his dorm; and stacked them high in the back of his car. Then, he drove around Center City and opened his doors.

A line of people quickly formed, and within a half-hour, every meal was gone.

“Some people came up to me in tears,” Ehlers recalled. “They told me it would be the only meal they’d have that day. That left a huge impression on me.”

The experience was eye-opening and revealed a much larger truth: excess food didn’t need to go to waste. It could meet real, urgent needs. Throughout the rest of his time at Drexel — he later graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Entrepreneurial Studies — Ehlers rallied fellow students to donate their leftover meal swipes.

Those efforts eventually coalesced into Sharing Excess, a nonprofit that now rescues millions of pounds of food each year.

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September is National Hunger Action Month, an annual awareness campaign that encourages individuals, communities, and businesses to take action to combat hunger and food insecurity. For Ehlers, it’s an opportunity to underscore both the urgency of the crisis and the solutions at hand.

“Nearly 40 percent of America’s food supply goes to waste — over 120 billion meals a year,” said Ehlers. “At the same time, 47 million Americans are food insecure. If we saved even seven percent of what we waste, we could theoretically end hunger in this country.”

Scaling his nonprofit, which is buoyed by more than 50 employees and 2,000 volunteers, means addressing one of the food system’s greatest challenges: logistics. Unlike canned goods, the surplus often comes in the form of fresh produce, meat, and dairy — all on the clock of perishability.

“Every tomato, every head of lettuce has a countdown,” Ehlers said. “It needs to be picked, stored, transported, and sold in a narrow timeframe. If one step breaks down, you’re talking about truckloads of food going to waste.”

To date, Sharing Excess has distributed more than 164 million pounds of food, enough to feed 10 million people across the country. That impact has garnered national attention, including a partnership with the most popular YouTuber on the planet, Jimmy Donaldson (aka MrBeast), who teamed up with Sharing Excess to stage one of the world’s largest food distributions. Also, in 2023, Forbes named Ehlers to its prestigious 30 Under 30 list for Social Impact.

“Honestly, I’m probably the poorest person on the list,” he joked. “But what matters is the value we’ve created for families. We’ve helped hundreds of thousands of people who were making impossible choices between paying rent, buying medicine, or putting food on the table. Through our work, they don’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from.”

As Sharing Excess continues to grow, its financial infrastructure has become critical, and so it recently partnered with Firstrust Bank. Choosing a banking partner wasn’t just about storing funds. Nonprofits like Sharing Excess must stretch every dollar, and Ehlers emphasized how Firstrust provides both security and strong financial returns.

“They offered rates and programs that make a huge difference for us,” he said. “It’s not just banking — it’s about giving us stability to scale our mission.”

Equally important, Ehlers noted, was Firstrust’s civic-minded approach.

“We needed a partner whose values aligned with ours,” he said. “Firstrust is Philadelphia’s Hometown Bank. Pairing that with our identity as a nonprofit born in Philadelphia, now with national reach, makes it the right fit.”

Learn more about how Firstrust Bank is helping people and businesses achieve success in the very region it calls home.