How The Hells Angels Move 100,000 Pounds Of Food And Why It Matters

Watch a city rally behind one simple promise: everyone deserves to eat. We sit down with the Foodbank’s president and CEO to unpack how a 54-hour push called The Mayflower Marathon becomes a lightning-fast pipeline of meals, 220,000 pounds collected in three days and out the door before Thanksgiving. The twist that makes it work: 200–300 riders from motorcycle clubs, including our host, Chef Tony's, Hells Angels chapter, coordinating six tractor trailers, partnering with Kroger and a moving and storage team, and delivering nearly half the total haul themselves.

We go beyond the parade to the numbers that matter. Demand is up 30–40% over the height of COVID. A dollar given often means two meals because of wholesale buying power and food rescue. Ninety-five cents of every dollar reaches neighbors directly, fueling healthier choices like produce and lean proteins that stabilize the working poor. Along the way, we confront stigma head on and share how trust grew at collection sites, from wary glances to first-name hellos and families who return each year to contribute.

This conversation blends frontline logistics with human stories: the farmer who still needs help, the teacher quietly packing fruit into backpacks, and the volunteers who turn a parking lot into a precision operation. If you’ve ever wondered whether cash or cans help more, how food banks move so fast, or what role you can play, you’ll find clear answers and practical ways to plug in, donate, volunteer, advocate, or simply spread the word so more hands show up when it counts.

Ready to be part of the solution? Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who cares about hunger.

Stop by any Kroger in the Hampton Roads, VA area to donate from now until Thanksgiving! 

Thank you!

Welcome to the show! Burnt Hands Perspective

Chapters

• 0:48 Setting The Stage: Why Food
• 2:55 Meet The Food Bank Leader
• 5:09 Mayflower Marathon Explained
• 9:09 The Numbers Behind The Need
• 12:41 Logistics, Partners, And Scale
• 17:19 Fighting Stigma And Building Trust
• 21:33 Unity Across Motorcycle Clubs
• 26:09 Beyond Holidays: Year-Round Hunger
• 29:33 Dollars Vs Cans: Real Impact
• 33:52 Food Rescue And Efficiency
• 37:29 Restaurants, Dignity, And Access

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:24

KT.

SPEAKER_00: 0:25

What's up?

SPEAKER_01: 0:25

All right, what's up? I'll tell you what's up. I will tell you what's up. What's up? We got Chris Tan here right here. That's what's up. For all you who don't know, this is the Burnt Hands Perspective. And typically the Burnt Hands Perspective is a show about the restaurant industry, all the things going on in it, front of the house, back of the house, bartenders, uh, food all the way around. Today is a little special, a little special edition today. Everybody knows, if you don't, I am a Hells Angel. I've been one for a very, very long time, many years. I love my life. I love what it is, and I love what it's done for me. Without getting into detail, the food bank of Virginia is here because we have a great uh connection with them. Yep. Every year we do an amazing thing for this for the city. And what I really want to do, honestly, is just take time to notice what it is they've allowed us to help with. Because one reason and one reason only, Chris, mainly, nobody is willing to take that chance with us because of the reputation, so on and so forth, which I'm not here to speak on one way or the other. Um, it's just another thing, right? Right. So we started this thing with you, and by the way, thank you very much. If you'd like to say a little something, please do.

SPEAKER_02: 1:29

Well, I mean, it's just a pleasure to be here. Like we're excited to have you, and we we get a lot from what you guys do every year. So I'm excited to talk about it. And your position with the food bank is I'm the president and the CEO of the food bank. Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 1:40

And that's amazing. So the food bank, as everybody knows, you got the logo with the apple, which we will be for we will be providing and showing and flashing throughout this once we edit this beautiful fucking mess. It's gonna be it's gonna be beautiful. So uh, Kristen, you're even when you were in the news industry back then, you've done time and time, countless events, I'm sure, with the food bank.

SPEAKER_00: 1:58

Yep, we've done a lot with the food bank. Um, you know, working in southeastern Virginia, North Carolina, you guys give a lot back. And we obviously work with you primarily through the holiday, but I think a lot of our awareness side was how far you guys can stretch a dollar, and also that the need is year-round, because we always tend to see it in the holidays. And again, we want to talk about that because I think a lot of people don't know how much the Hells Angels give back to the food bank and what that percentage is that helps people in this area. So we can kind of touch on those things.

SPEAKER_02: 2:25

This is a perfect timing for this in some sense, like the Mayflower Marathon, which is our biggest. Our biggest it's our only event of the year, really, in some sense, and it's by far our biggest. It's a 54-hour straight um opportunity for the people in the in our city to give back. Yeah. Uh, we need organizations to lead that charge, and the Hells Angels and the motorcycle clubs are the number one organization to do that for us.

SPEAKER_01: 2:52

Oh, right on. Um so can you give a little bit of what that means? I mean, I think that what what I want to do is lay out kind of why we're even bothered talking about this before we get into the ups and downs of it all, before we get into the nitty-gritty. What why are we even bothering discussing this? I'll tell you my point of view, but why are you here?

SPEAKER_02: 3:09

So, one is that during Thanksgiving in particular and the holidays, it brings a lot of attention to hunger that we need to know about. But people, hunger doesn't know a season. People are hungry all year round. Right. So for us, we get into Mayflower and things like that to make sure that we can collect a lot of food for those in need, but also to bring attention to the need all year round. Uh, it's also our biggest event. So we have to get it done and we have to get it done quickly. We need organizations, we have hundreds of organizations that give food to us.

SPEAKER_01: 3:37

And FM99, the rock station, is the huge provider to that.

SPEAKER_02: 3:40

Yeah, so it's literally their event, and we happen to be the recipients of it. Sure. It's been going on for 27 straight years. It's amazing. Uh there are people we have a t-shirt. Through COVID. Through COVID, through everything. There's t-shirts that they sell. There are people that come every year and go, I want my t-shirt. I have 28 of them right now. I need this one, I need the next one. So there's a loyal fan base to it. And for us, like, this is what we do for a living. We delivered last year 24.7 million pounds of food to those in need. Wow. We know that since COVID, the need has actually gone up. We thought COVID was going to be the height of the need. The no the needs are 30, 40% higher than the height of COVID.

SPEAKER_01: 4:17

So out of that 24 million, do you know off top of your head how much of that was delivered by the Hells Angels?

SPEAKER_02: 4:22

So last year, over 100,000 pounds. Right. Uh by far our biggest provider. So to give you guys the shout out that you kind of deserve, we collected about 220,000 pounds last year at the Mayflower Marathon. In three days, we collect 220,000 pounds. The Hells Angels delivered 102,000 pounds of that.

SPEAKER_00: 4:41

Almost 50 percent.

SPEAKER_01: 4:42

45 percent. That's a lot of people. I don't think people understand what that means. So that's and we gotta thank, like I gotta thank Kroger for this, right? Kroger grocery stores for this on uh as a national, they're a huge store. Right. And they they provide us with what we need to get this done. Right. And that and that's us staging their using their uh platform to be able to get out the to the to reach to the people. Right. So thank you for them for doing this as well. In that time, a couple hundred thousand pounds of food. I don't think people realize that's in a year.

SPEAKER_02: 5:12

I mean, that's not the whole time, the whole time is six hundred thousand pounds of food.

SPEAKER_01: 5:16

Yeah, right. Yeah, so so I mean that's crazy. So that's the whole that's a collective, yeah, right? So in a year, 200,000 pounds of food. Yeah, Hells Angels brought 102 of it for the event.

SPEAKER_00: 5:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:29

That's crazy. Yeah, in one event. So we work for six weeks doing that. I say it's crazy, but I'm I'm acting like it's crazy, like I don't really know. But as I'm sitting here reflecting on it, man, I'm like, we fucking do a lot. That's a lot. That's how you know I mean that's six weeks of our lives. Uh Mallory's here, she's in the back, she's she works with the food bank, and she's a huge asset helper. She's like my right-hand person. Ain't that right? Scream. Yay! So she she she can tell you. And I, me and the guys, we just go through it. The support in our area is huge. Hampton Roads, Virginia, we have a huge motorcycle community. They all support Hells Angels. It's a it's a red and white area. We all know that. Everybody's there, and all the motorcycle community is just huge, right? The problem is though, well, not a problem yet, but people don't realize that that's six trailer loads of food last year. Six tractor trailers. So not only do we have to get with Kroger, we have to get with Hampton Roads Moving and Storage. Uh Della there is amazing. Yep. They're trying to get truckers, they're trying to get tractor drivers, they're trying to get these trailers offloaded, onloaded. We're now to the point where we have to do a six-week spread. We have to bring the trailers and stuff to the food bank to offload them to make sure we have another one for the upcoming drive. So it's become a huge friggin' uh web of crap going on here that we didn't we didn't know we were signing up for by any means. 13 years ago, I think we started this and we just did something to give back something. We're getting we get negative review news all the time. The negative part of our lives is there. You could falsely make which they do nine times out of 10, exaggerate, falsify, anything they can to make a fucking story. Right. So sometimes there is some negative, like anything. There's negative coughs, negative school teachers, negative damn chefs, negative uh whatever you want to call it, right? There's firefighters who slept through the alarm. So let's, you know what I mean? It happens. So what they don't realize is the amount of effort that has gone from a little thing that we had a pickup truck, then the next year we had a pickup truck with a bike trailer. Following the year after that, we actually had a box truck that we rented that was an open thing, like we were bringing friggin' cattle to get, you know what I mean? And then it went from there to there to there. Now we have Hampton Roads moving storage, we have FM99 on board, Kroger's on board, the food bank is helps tremendously with transporting. It has become something that is no longer a freaking hobby, it's almost something that we now are dedicated to because if we don't do it anymore, who the fuck is? Yeah, so we're right.

SPEAKER_02: 7:54

We're so lucky to have you in that sense. We appreciate that. And and the truth is, you're delivering half of the food for the event. Yeah. And also the motorcycle club, you know, is also the highlight of the end. So it's always at the end. There's 200, 300 plus motorcycles all coming in.

SPEAKER_01: 8:10

We've turned it into a parade. So now on the route from where we pick it to sell up at Scandals, who's been a huge help to us in all this, they host our event on our end. Scandals Bar on Holland Road. I'm throwing a plug. Plug light. Plug life. So what we we throw that out there. Um, they have been there from the beginning. That's where we staged that morning and put everything together and get everything rolling. And then we run the pack from that morning. It's the last Sunday before Thanksgiving every year at 1 o'clock p.m. If you guys want to be out there and check it out every year. It doesn't matter if this thing right here plays two years from now and you're seeing it, it's still gonna be the last third uh last Sunday before Thanksgiving. So you can come anytime. Anyhow, that road is pretty much shut down. Um, we we get escorted in there and we we deliver all this food. Right. Uh problem is what I find to be a problem with it is we we get very little support outside of our network, right? Because we're the hell's angels. Fine. Think we're bad, think we're this, think we're that. I'm not trying to sit here and sell us differently. Right, I'm just trying to say that this event in itself has nothing to do with the fuck you think it is, right? It has nothing to do with the image that you're putting out there, though the the people. Um, you know, the the news coverage refuses to cover it. We've asked many times, we've we've gone way beyond. Actually, the food bank even now even reached out and we get nothing back from that. Year after year after year, we don't get the coverage that we need. And the coverage isn't really for us. We're not patting on the back. The the coverage is to get more people involved, right? Right. So we want coverage because the more coverage we have, the more volunteers we get. We can't do this shit on our own, right? We're bikers, right? We we sit around, we all have jobs, some of us we all have our life. And and we and we motorcycles and and the enthusiasm for it is what we're about. Everything else lives within it, right? Right. So when you have a when that group of bikers, which is pretty big, is counted on by something so much bigger, that group becomes small very quick. So our us wanting to get out all these years wasn't about look at the hell's angels. We're not trying to be Boy Scouts or nothing, we're not even interested in any of that crap. Right. What we what we like to do though is is keep doing what we're doing. And we want to be known and recognized because we need help doing it, right? So the more people that go come to the food bank, the food bank can volunteer and help people at these locations at Kroger and stuff like that. So I'm I'm a chef, I'm a restaurant owner, I'm a huge uh enthusiast of the culinary arts in our area. I I do what I can to pull my part in that, and that's why the food drive has a lot of meaning to me. Right. Because it's food, it's right in the damn tile. Food. Yeah. So with the food being the food, that that's a part of this whole thing that that kind of combines my life. So I have a I have my guys are all enthusiastic. We we all have a tie to it as what the club's doing for the community. And it gets tiring, it gets old. Don't get me wrong, man. We show up, I I speak for me. There's days I showed up to the collection points on a Sunday morning hungover, sitting there just, you know what I mean, just wishing what the hell did I do to myself last night. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's all fun and going. But after six weeks of doing this, we're giving up our time, our family, and everything else. And this sounds almost like a fucking pitch, but but it it's not.

SPEAKER_00: 11:21

You're just trying to show how much goes into it because I don't think people realize they think it's a one-day event. Nobody ever looks at planning events and goes, Oh shit, there's three months of, I mean, for you guys, an entire year of planning because you're having meetings every month, there's hours put in. So people like to look at it and say, Oh, that's easy, I could do that. I mean, we deal with it all the time. And I think you're just you're just solidifying the fact that you guys put a lot of work in. Well, like you do it every year.

SPEAKER_01: 11:44

And there's more to come with it. So branching out from just that, when when when the money used to be the main focus, people used to donate money because I think they saw us, they didn't want to say no, and they would just throw some money in the donation pot. We appreciate it. And as time goes on, and and then well, the money donations are great because they they do a lot more for you than the food, is that right?

SPEAKER_02: 12:03

That's right. So we can turn like$10 worth of donated food into if you give us$10 worth of. So if you go out to Kroger and you buy$10 worth of soup, you're paying retail price. Yeah. They got$10 worth of soup. You got you give me$10, I can go buy it from where Kroger's buying it and probably turn it into$60 worth of soup. Yeah, so for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 12:21

So what we noticed too in the time is that at the beginning, the money was bigger than the food donations, right? Because I think, like I said, after we analyzed, I think people were just like, yeah, sure, here. And they leave because we're Hell's Angels. They didn't know, they didn't want to, they didn't want to interact with us twice. Right. They didn't want to say no because whatever, I don't know what. But in time, as we did this year after year, we noticed that people are now comfortable waiting to see us there. So they see us there, they're comfortable with it. Hey, remember me from last year? Fuck yeah, I remember you from last year. Dude, how you been? How's this? Your kid got big, you know? Right, yeah. Every year we do something else. We have people that bring us food, people that bring us baked goods, right? Um, you know, got to smell, make sure they're proper. Okay. Trying to party out here, you know what I mean? No, I'm just kidding. But no, that people really go out of their way to make us comfortable. Right. Right. And that goes to show that just from what we do, um, it is really affecting a whole community. And in the food bank now, what I want to do with my chef and my culinary is we're we're talking about as a club, we're bringing in other things because just doing the food drive alone now is starting to get beyond our reach. Right. There's it's a lot happening. There's a lot of moving parts to make this happen. So, what we're talking about now is how can we expand this to even different parts, different entities, like for instance, a uh Hells Angels food drive golf tournament, um, a culinary experience where you get local chefs in the area to put on a banquet that would benefit our our cause, in addition to everything we're already doing. Yeah, it has a lot of fingers and has a lot of legs to move forward, and it it really has nothing to do more with uh with our individual passion for helping.

SPEAKER_02: 13:51

Yeah, I mean, I think at the food bank too, like for from my perspective, the Hells Angels and the rest of the motorcycle clubs are representing what we ask people to do, which is do what you can.

SPEAKER_03: 14:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 14:00

You know, some people can't give us money, they give us their time. Right, some people give us, you know, funding. Some people go and get food if they can't. You guys sit out for six weeks and collect food out of a Kroger. Uh, sometimes, probably, I would assume in the beginning at least, maybe not the best reception, right?

SPEAKER_01: 14:17

I mean, like it starts, it but believe it or not, it fades as it goes. You're talking about from the people or our help?

SPEAKER_02: 14:22

No, from the people like coming to you and going like you were saying, or maybe getting into the Kroger's at the beginning there.

SPEAKER_01: 14:27

And even last year, sometimes people will write some hate mail to the Kroger saying there's uh racist groups out front, there's uh terrorism out front. These why are you guys having these criminal outlaws out front? It happens all the time, right? But we don't give a shit because we've already got that.

SPEAKER_02: 14:44

We've been at the food bank two two and a half years right now. And when I first got here, I was like, oh, the the motorcycle gang. This is what we're doing. We're collecting food with motorcycle clubs. How do we do it? So I would go into Kroger, not dressed as my like just normal with my family, and I would go donate. And I have never had a bad experience. Oh, you've got to be. I've actually had the best experiences. Yeah. But people thank me for giving. Yeah, they don't know that I'm the CEO of the food.

SPEAKER_01: 15:05

Look, let me let me tell you this, and this goes for any club out there, anybody out there, any tough guy, any felon, any prison, it doesn't matter. No matter how tough or scary or whatever it is your image is or who you are or how tough you are, yeah, even the toughest dude on the planet doesn't want to wake up and have a bad day. Right. Okay? Everyone just wants to go about their day. Yeah, and the ones who do don't last long, and they have nothing to do with this conversation. But for the most part, even the toughest, the most barbaric people want to wake up and have a good day. Right. Okay. No Viking ever woke up and said, let's go pillage. They went and pillaged for a reason, but they probably didn't want to. They wanted to just go party after. Nobody wants to wake up to a bad day. Right? So that goes for the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. We're gonna be who we are, and we're and we're and it's a it's a group of great men. Okay? Yeah, and that's it, that's the bottom line.

SPEAKER_02: 15:52

And the other thing it does that I talk about all the time, and as a chef, you probably know better than anybody. Like food connects us all, right? Like correct. It connects people with different backgrounds. I'm assuming that these motorcycle clubs don't hang out together all year round. But for one event, they can put aside differences if there are any, they can get together and talk about the need for food in our community. The other piece is that I'm fairly confident because I've walked in every every lane of life, that some of the people in the motorcycle experienced food insecurity when they were kids. Sure. That they didn't have all the food that they needed to make life happen, right? And so I enjoyed hanging out with people that are passionate about what they do. I'm passionate about the food bank. I'm telling you the motorcycle clubs that collect for us, if you're spending a Sunday and a weekend helping us collect funds and food for people, you're passionate about what you do, that's all I really care about.

SPEAKER_01: 16:43

After that, let's so the ignorance of the people who who have our naysayers or anything in it, they're gonna be there, right? So moving forward from that, man, because it's it's it's so important that people understand that that's all we care about. Right. It's that simple. And what you said before is people coming together. The motorcycle clubs in this area are all together. That's what makes this thing work so good. The ones who aren't are on their own agenda and they're not even part of it, and they're kind of ostracized from the whole thing anyway, because they're just on the outskirts and they never get that type of they wouldn't be allowed in to have the experience. You you don't get the benefit once when you don't add ever. You see what I'm saying? Absolutely. So the all the clubs in this area are friends, we are friendly, we all do talk together, and the ones who aren't, we don't even they don't even regul register here, right? Yeah. So it's not even a thing here. They're not even noticed, really. We don't no one even pays attention to them until they want to be known. But we're not gonna let them be known by joining something so great when they don't add to the community ever at any other time. Sure. You know, yeah. So it is a great time for us all to get together because we do know each other, and it's actually time that we use our unity and see it happen, right? That's what we do. So we're you we're united all year long. But what you're saying is right. When we actually get together and watch this unification happen, yeah, that's when we realize shit, we actually do have a great unity and a great Yeah, it's move it's it's it's kind of moving in some sense.

SPEAKER_02: 18:06

And you got like, you know, bikers for Christ next to other people. It's just amazing. Like and it's just again, it's one common cause, right? One common cause and one way of six weeks a year. Six weeks a year, one Sunday uh uh the year, right before ironically, Thanksgiving, where we're gonna give thanks for the goodness that we have in our life. And it's really, I mean, it it's it's it's a it's a feat to see. We have really awesome drone footage of it, of, of, of it coming down. And we'll be playing some of that in the background of this. Yeah, it's amazing in that sense. But it really what you know, I'm gonna say this, and our world could use more of it for sure. Sure. Like we know, we're we're equally divided now more than ever around all the different types of issues. The one thing we could agree on is that nobody, no matter whether you're should go hungry.

unknown: 18:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 18:52

No, and particularly no kids should go hungry. No kids should ever go hungry. You know, we got some communities in our area, especially like one in four children in certain areas of our community don't know where their next meal goes.

SPEAKER_00: 19:03

Because I've had friends who are teachers who watch their kids in class, and obviously we see, you know, when when lunch isn't provided, that that's a huge issue because most children in this area, that's the only time they get to eat. So they would be hoarding food at the end of lunch or trying to, you know, take fruit. But one of my girlfriends who taught for a long time had like, I mean, it was a good percentage of her class dealing with that, and that was in a very affluent area on Virginia Beach that people were like, Oh, that doesn't happen here. They cleared out their food room because most of them do the donation room every year where they bring in all the clothes and the food at the beginning of the year and snacks. In two weeks, all of that food and clothing is gone because those kids need it. And she would pack everything up off lunch trays, like the fruit that wasn't eaten and things like that, take it to her classroom and sneak it into their backpacks every day. And I think people need to realize that that is happening and it happens more than you think.

SPEAKER_03: 19:53

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 19:53

And if you can't come together for the greater good of supporting this community, then you're not, you don't deserve it in your own life. Like I think that it's just you have to look past any kind of indifferences. And that was my biggest takeaway when we were in the media side of it, because we said the media doesn't support. We we did some of the I know I was at some of the free drives through the media, so I know I was there back in the day. Things have changed a little bit, you know, especially post-COVID, people not going to certain places with the the media stuff. But you know, I'm gonna help with that this year. But when I was there, it was the best experience. And we worked, I think the radio station kind of parlays in between as well to kind of mediate and get people in. Um, but just seeing people in this area actually say, hey, it's okay to show up and help. And if you're gonna run your mouth, then put some action behind it.

SPEAKER_02: 20:37

Right. And we have 7,000 volunteers a year at the food bank that help us every year that gives us millions of dollars worth of. Send some our way this time. We are sending 154 your way this time. I appreciate that. For sure. Like people hopefully be raising their hands. Right. Exactly. Because I mean, and we're excited about it because again, you know, I hope what this does, if it does anything, is bring attention to the idea that everybody in your community can make a difference and that we're all we we all know people that struggle. Some of us may have struggled in the past, yeah, but we all can do what we can. And again, that's what I think Mayflower Marathon is really all about. There are people that come there and just pack food for us for hours. They do too. They do. I've seen it.

SPEAKER_01: 21:17

And I remember when we used to bring two or three track trucks. Remember this, we used to bring three or two or three trucks there, and we would have to they would all unload it. We didn't have it figured out yet and how we were gonna do it. Yeah, yeah. So that we'd unload the trailers.

unknown: 21:30

Oh, god.

SPEAKER_01: 21:31

Volunteers, it looked like we're it looked like we were smuggling. I mean, it was like we're taking them out of one truck, put them in the other, the other one would take off, get the hell out of there. People were probably like, what the hell's really going on over here, right? Right. Yeah, right. No, but really, I mean, it was a lot. So now it became into all the volunteers that were there working it were were uh it was amazing. Yeah, and they had their shit figured out, which was great. Um, you know, it comes down to, you know, when it comes down to the clubs helping and doing that, it I don't believe anymore that that it's people say, well, the Hells Angels do great for the community. That's that's wonderful, thank you, but that's not really what we're about. We're we're we're men who actually um have a great vehicle to be able to do what it is we love doing. And and that's that in this six weeks a year, yeah, we put everything the fuck aside and we do what we do. And that's the end of it. And and it's not we don't we're not looking for reward, we're not looking for anything. We're actually just looking for recognition to be able to expand our level of help. You know what I mean? Get the get the word out there to get it done. End of story. That's it. There's no sapness to it, there's no sorriness to it. It's it either we we either get help or we have to slow it down. Yeah you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02: 22:37

And so the best part about it, too, and I I want to make sure we give a shout-out to our staff who make this happen, is that all that food's collected through Sunday. Sure. And all of that food is out our door before Thanksgiving. It's crazy. So three days, 200,000 pounds goes out. Not so like I always like to tell people, you know, 100,000 pounds, what does that really mean? No, the Hells and Angels and the clubs, that's 87,000 meals that people ate. Right. Because of you.

SPEAKER_01: 23:08

What did you do for your community today? Exactly. What the hell did you do, Mr. Fucking Naysayer? You didn't do it, did you? 87,000. So incredible, right?

SPEAKER_00: 23:15

You got your training at Chick-fil-A. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like pumping them through there.

SPEAKER_01: 23:19

So it's it's it's a matter of um, you know, you can you can sit here and claim an area, you can claim you're uh you're involved with your community. You get like you said a minute ago, you can put your money where your mouth is, right? Yeah. So you you really gotta either you can say that all you want to, or you can let the community speak for you. And when it comes to the food bank and the Hells Angels, the community knows what's going on with that relationship. Same thing with Kroger. People are very well aware now when they go to Kroger during this time frame, we're gonna be there and they're excited to be there with you. And it's like I said, it's it's a wonderful relationship, and we're very proud of it. Um I always had where are we going in the future with it? We're working on that, right?

SPEAKER_02: 23:55

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 23:56

I've always had this dream as a chef and someone in the community that I would have uh almost like a Thanksgiving spread one day where I can have people come and eat and we would serve that. But being in the restaurant industry like I am, I'm so busy all the time that cooking to that level would be a whole new thing. Yeah, but it would also interfere with the amount of work we need to do to get the food bank in. So I don't know what would be more beneficial to the people. A place where they can go on Thanksgiving and eat a meal or having a meal in their cupboards, because what you said before was interesting. Thirty three days people come in there and pound all this food out the door.

SPEAKER_03: 24:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:35

Just on ours alone, six tractor trailer fuels last year. Exactly right. They get rid of it in three days. None of that, well, not none, sorry. A very small percentage of that is literally related to Thanksgiving. Right. This isn't Thanksgiving food. We're not talking about six trails of stuffing and cranberry sauce. They're not coming in there to get their Thanksgiving meal. This is regular a hundred thousand pounds of food. Spaghetti O's all the way down to tuna to baby wipes. Everything you could want. Diapers have been a huge thing. Yep. Uh formula. These are all things that our people are bringing in to us, right? And and for three days for all that to go literally shows the need for it's not just about Thanksgiving, man. This is just this is just a honey hole. It's really never about this.

SPEAKER_00: 25:18

No, it's not it's just it's a way to market it because it's more marketable because the holidays are not going to be able to do that. That brings more attention.

SPEAKER_02: 25:23

And you know, the holidays bring attention to nonprofits across the country. People want more attention. People want to help. It's the giving season. They're called that for a reason. Yeah. Well, you can't. And I appreciate the fact that you you think about you know wanting to cook for there's no way you can ever feed 87,000 people like you do. There's not.

SPEAKER_01: 25:37

So do I that's where I'm at now? Yeah. Would would I host an event that would allow a hundred or two hundred people in the community to come to? That would be a very nice gesture.

SPEAKER_02: 25:45

For sure.

SPEAKER_01: 25:45

But it would also take away from 87,000 people who would actually be there literally eating for a couple of days in their cupboards. Absolutely. You know what I mean? Digging out their cupboards. So if I'm not cooking all these turkeys and doing what I'd really love to do, right? We still got some spaghettios up there. Exactly right. Um, we got something.

SPEAKER_00: 26:02

Well, I know you said hunger, I mean, it knows no season, and since this is kind of more of an educational episode for people of how to give back.

SPEAKER_03: 26:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 26:09

Let's talk about the needs. So, where is the most need, the things you guys need, and how can people, you know, really, really make a difference in the community.

SPEAKER_02: 26:17

So, what two things that the food bank is really focused on in the last two years is one, trying to provide healthier food, like not leading into the process or problem of getting people healthier so that they can work, so that they can be educated, so they can do those things. And unfortunately, healthy food is also oftentimes the most expensive. So produce, lean protein. So we're focusing on that. You know, the number one thing you can give us is your your dollars. And I hate to say it that way, but we we treasure that. Like one of the biggest things that we're I'm proud of as the food bank is 95 cents of every dollar you give us goes directly to people.

SPEAKER_03: 26:52

It's amazing.

SPEAKER_02: 26:53

So we have a five percent administrative rate. We have to have refrigerators, we have to have payroll, we have to house this is gonna have to say that 95 cents of every dollar is going into the hands of somebody in need is important. Yeah. Number two, we're really working with the working poor. We're not providing the meal for every single every meal of every person's life. Like that is not what we're doing. We have soup kitchens, we help out with all of those things. But we're really working with people that work every day and their food budget with inflation and the cost of food, they cannot afford what we used to afford. It's just crazy. Right? And so we're not talking about providing every meal for every person every day. We're talking about helping. I'll give you a great story that uh when I first started at the food bank, um, I I really didn't know what I was doing. I'd never been a food banker. I didn't even know food banking was a word. And I I would go in line with some of our uh neighbors and just shop with them and ask them how they're doing, et cetera. And I went into our Franklin facility, uh, which is in uh Franklin, Virginia, it was just opened, and I was shopping with a mother and her teenage son, and I said, You know, you mind if I ask what you do for a living? And she's like, I I I'm a farmer. I said, Oh, really? What farm do you work on? She said, No, I own a farm. I said, You own a farm and you're coming to us for food. You're it just was an eye-opening experience. Like the margin in farms, small farms is very small. Like it could be anybody at any time that needs that little bit of help.

SPEAKER_03: 28:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 28:21

Uh and so again, we're super excited about the idea that people are we're growing. Like we're we're we're we've gone up 35% in our food distribution in the last two years, where other food banks are going down 18%. Well, and that's because we have gotten the community involved. You guys are out there.

SPEAKER_01: 28:41

I've I've lived in different areas throughout, and I travel a lot. Yeah, and and I pay attention to little things, especially things I'm involved with in one way or another. Um, and and I I don't see as much you guys are in the public. You you you get out there. So I don't know if it's because you have a great team who understands outreach, you know what I'm saying? Or you know, Mallory, are you talking about for sure? Yeah, getting out to the social, getting out on the streets, getting out and being part of things, awareness, right? Uh being being sometimes you have to learn when and where to pick your pick your place. Yeah. So sometimes, you know, people will place themselves in things that aren't as relevant or they're not as helpful as where you would here. And it seems like you guys have a match. Mallory has a has a has a natch for that of a niche for doing this. You know what I'm saying? It's you know what I mean, Chris and the case.

SPEAKER_00: 29:27

Well, you guys, I mean it's you know, and it's an evolution because you know, you've learned more in marketing, we've gotten, you know, the community here is stronger, there's more awareness around it. So a lot of those things help when you guys do that. But uh that was the biggest thing that always stood out to me, though, was the the per dollar. Yeah because and I I was always amazed because people are like, oh, go buy a can of soup and drop it off. Give you guys a dollar and you can buy multiple cans of soup. So it it doesn't take a lot of effort to help. Yep. And when you say one dollar makes a difference, that one dollar could be lunch for somebody for days. And you're not thinking that way.

SPEAKER_02: 29:59

50 cents a meal, basically. So I mean, if you give us a dollar, we can provide two meals for that because we can leverage donated food like you that you do every year. We can leverage our buying power. Yeah. We rescue food from almost every uh um uh grocery store in our area. So we're we're picking up three or four times a week from almost every grocery store. We rescued nine million pounds of food last year alone, just from food that was meant to be thrown out. There are people that say Oh, we throw all the food away.

SPEAKER_00: 30:25

We like the people will say that. The naysayers will say that, oh, well, you know, they're throwing all this food away. So you guys actually are getting some of that.

SPEAKER_02: 30:32

Yeah. So most most uh grocery stores are we're picking up two or three times a week from where from their from their produce section, from their lean protein section, but also from their dry goods section. Yeah. Um a lot of bakery, unfortunately. That's what we get the most of. Yeah. But we love bread. I love it. So we're we're good. So I mean, we're we're we're really fortunate in that sense to have this kind of um community and and and but and unfortunately it doesn't meet the need. I always say so. We deliver the weight of an elephant of food every hour that we're open.

unknown: 31:06

That's great.

SPEAKER_02: 31:07

So think about an elephant going out. But to meet the need, it had to be three elephants and a baby elephant. So per every hour.

SPEAKER_01: 31:13

Well, you think about that, and and and that's a lot of food too, because you think how much is a box of spaghetti weigh?

SPEAKER_02: 31:18

Yeah, it's not much.

SPEAKER_01: 31:18

Yeah, nothing. Yep. Yeah, you guys are doing a lot. Box spaghetti is a pound. How many weight, how much pounds is in an elephant? That's a lot of spaghetti. Yeah, for sure. It's a lot of spaghetti. That's how you're gonna start measuring shit in the kitchen. Not only that, though, that actually sounds pretty good. Okay, got it. Elephant bowl is sitting with a spaghetti. So it's it's interesting when you start breaking it down and looking at what's what all that stuff. I just wanted to have you come on our show because our show is about, like I said at the beginning of this, everybody knows who watches this show. The restaurant industry, gruesome, grueling, fun, exciting, uh uh disappointing. It's got it's just a roller coaster of emotions. Um what I do as a chef and what I do in my restaurants is is we can talk about that all day long and still have topic after topic after topic. But it is food, it is a food drive. I really wanted to put it out there that in all different levels and ways, food, you either come into a high-end restaurant and paying for it, yeah, or you're doing what you can to get it no matter what. Food is essential, more than anything. Oxygen, water, food. You gotta have it. Heat, roof, these are things you have to have. Exactly right. So at the best, white tablecloth, as you see in the background, my restaurants provide that for the people who do that. But I also don't only want to stop there. I, as a Hells Angel and a just a man, yeah, right, I want to be able to help at every level. I want food, I want people to eat. I want people to eat. And if if there was a way I could clone myself to cook at all levels, I would. You know what I'm saying? But I uh unfortunately for the lower levels that uh that I can't cook at because I'm I'm busy where I am, right? It's hard for me to do that. So the best way I can give back, and and and my brothers in the club feel the same exact way, is that we we give back to the to that. That's how we do it. Yeah, everyone needs to eat, it's all food related, it's a burnt hands perspective thing. It's it's uh it's who I am. Um, I'm not here to solicit the Hell's Angels in any fucking way, uh, but I happen to be one. And that's in the and and I have all the honor in that in the world. And and the stuff my brothers, it's not really about me, it's about what my brothers go through to do to do this because they are not all in the food industry, they all don't have the access to food or the people in the food industry like I do. Yeah, until last year I didn't know you were, yeah. Exactly. So a lot of people don't know. But then again, a lot of people watching this show don't know I'm a Hells Angel. Right. So I don't hide behind anything. So the people who don't know how I'm a chef, they'll know. The people who don't know I'm a Hell's Angel will know. There's no, it's just a matter of time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:44

So bottom line. Bottom line. Bottom line. Gotta help.

SPEAKER_01: 33:48

Gotta help. So I'm doing this as a man, and I happen to be a Hells Angel. So I'm not trying to push that, I'm just letting people know that it takes all kinds of people to do the right thing, right? That's exactly right. Any knucklehead can do the wrong thing. Every person who does something right can also do something wrong, right? So we're just normal people, right? Yeah. And you guys as a food bank have helped us be able to provide in a way that we probably wouldn't be able to do in any other way. No one really wants to accept that's it's sad to say, but there's a lot of people don't want to accept the relationship with the hell's angels. And you guys have.

SPEAKER_03: 34:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 34:20

And and and you you helped us prove that wrong. Of course, there's some people out there that probably don't want a relationship with the hell's angel, and I'm cool with that too. That's fine. They're not they're not your people. It's okay. It is what it is. So I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of end this off unless Kristen, you have anything more?

SPEAKER_00: 34:38

No, I just think that, yeah, I mean, call to action, where people can help year-round, how people can give back in the community.

SPEAKER_02: 34:44

Yeah, I think you know, well, one, come out to the Kroger and and see for yourself what would these guys do for six weeks prior to Saturday and Sunday every month, starting last week of October, all the way through to the last week and of Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_01: 34:55

Year later.

SPEAKER_02: 34:56

If you want to give online, foodbancoline.org. If you want to come volunteer with us, we have volunteer opportunities every single day. We have volunteer opportunities where you can see the face of hunger and give food directly. We have volunteer opportunities if you want to just box food for us. We have volunteer opportunities to rescue that food that we talked about earlier. There's a lot of places and ways that you can do something to make a difference. And again, our message is yeah, I want, for sure, I want the$10,000,$20,000,$30,000 donations. I mean, that makes my life a heck of a lot easier for sure. But I also want the$1 donation where that one dollar means more to you than anything else. Yeah. I want the person that can't do that for us, for sure. Those are the ways you can get foodbanklin.org. And then hopefully, if you need help, you will come. And you can go to that same website and you can click on a map that says, here's where I live or here's where I work, and then it'll populate 10 to 20 different places in your area where you can get help. And so we want to make sure that people don't feel like there's a stigma to getting help. We all struggle at times. Yeah. And make sure that you know that we're here for you, and the hell's angels are here for you on the Thanksgiving time and uh to make a difference for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 36:07

Appreciate it. Absolutely. And I'm gonna say this, I'm gonna close out with this. There's always gonna be naysayers, there's always gonna be negative. Even the food bank might get a little, well, I can't still believe you're helping the Hell's Angels. If you're going to do that, please do. We don't give a shit. I don't care what you think about us. I don't, no one cares. You don't like it, see us, see it, and we'll talk about it, right? Right. So, other than that, if you're gonna go say anything negative, if you're gonna post anything negative, save it off the social media, write it down on a piece of paper, wrap it around a can of something, bring it to the food bank, and leave your little message on a can so you can at least say you've done something other than bitched about it, right? Right? I agree. And then we'll actually promote you saying how good of a person you are for helping the homeless or helping the hungry, right? Not the homeless so much, but the hungry. So do that. So if you're gonna bitch, complain, write bad reviews, or even question anything, write your little memo on a can, bring it to the food bank, and do it that way so you too can be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. Okay? That's what I got for you. That's it. Take care, brush your hair. Ciao for now.

SPEAKER_00: 37:13

Ciao for now. Thank you, Chris.

SPEAKER_01: 37:15

Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you.