Founded by students at UCLA, Swipes for the Homeless began with students “swiping” into their dining halls for meals to-go and delivering the meals to people on the streets of Los Angeles. After institutionalizing the program, meal swipes are now transferred into non-perishable goods to be delivered to the local homeless population, and the movement has spread across the country. In 2011, after four years of operating solely on volunteerism, Swipes became an international non-profit organization with chapters throughout the world, whose growth we are excited to support. In 2013 they received a grant from the Jenzabar Foundation, let’s see what they did with it:

The grant helped Swipes in their overall capacity. It covered about two whole months of operations. Here are some of the things that have happened since they received the Jenzabar Foundation award. Technically, the grant represented 17% of Swipes overall budget during this period. It was spent with a focus of starting new chapters and supporting the UCLA and USC Chapters. Below are some details.

UCLA:

• Homelessness awareness week.

• They’ve had more than 7 volunteer trips.

• The current Presidents, Aaron Masjedi and Emily Vargas, have a total team of 29 people just at UCLA on the Swipes Board.

• The meal Swipes that UCLA Swipes for the Homeless collects, are donated directly to students in need. This happens in 2 ways; a bulk of the funds are used to purchase food for the UCLA Food Closet and there is an unmarked room where students and faculty can access and take what they need to make it through the day and beyond.

• Another portion of the dollars is spent on the Bruin Meal Voucher Program. Donated meal swipes are converted into meal vouchers which are distributed to students in need who can then enter the dining hall for free and enjoy a warm, nutritious meal like everyone else.

This meal voucher program was actually picked up on by the UC Board of Regents who considering and planning out how to roll it out across the UC System schools. The Program currently exists at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara through Swipes for the Homeless.

USC:

• Great growth in the partnership with university administration

• Now students are able to donate via their cell phones

• The donations from USC are going to have their focus shifted. Now about $40k a year will be spent on food for youth 18-25 years old in youth shelters trying to get back on their feet.

• USC has begun tabling around the school at all types of events from farmers markets to sports games.

• The students, with the help of professionals, provide tours of Skid Row– the highest population of homeless people in the entire country. There are approximately 50,000 homeless people. USC is very close to Skid Row but students are so isolated that these tours are literally becoming a bridge between the communities.

National Updates:

• Launched a new chapter at UC Riverside and at Loyola Marymount University

• Amount of Food donated in 2013: 104,846

• In 2014 so far: 71,450 meals. (note, some schools don’t report until the end of the year so this is likely to jump!)

• There are more than two THOUSAND students across the country that choose to stand up against hunger and donate a swipe each year. Swipes donations range from 1 meal to 140 meals!

• Swipes for the Homeless just celebrated their 4th Official anniversary.

The Jenzabar Foundation is so glad to see how their great helped in this noble and fast growing project. Keep up the good work Swipes!

Arthur: Rachel Sumekh, Executive Director at Swipes for the Homeless, and Christina Meneghini, Jenzabar Foundation Intern.