The Monday Fund was launched with the belief that schools could be the cornerstone to ending childhood hunger in our country.
In its first few years, the Monday Fund fueled deep investments in capacity, training, grants, and advocacy and helped hundreds of thousands of kids across the country start their school day with a healthy school breakfast. Our expanded advocacy team successfully fought for breakfast legislation in dozens of states including Virginia, New York, California, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, helping secure state funding to expand breakfast programs and legislation requiring schools to offer alternative breakfast models. These efforts helped governors, mayors, school districts and community organizations address childhood hunger in ways that are scalable and lasting.
As 2020 began, Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign was making tremendous progress, and USDA reported that 2019 saw the lowest number of kids living with hunger in over two decades.
Because of our newly expanded reach and impact, Share Our Strength was uniquely positioned to respond when the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools across the country. During the first two years of the pandemic, we pivoted our entire operation to support schools and organizations feeding children while schools were closed—raising and deploying unprecedented funds for emergency grants and helping secure the policy and regulatory changes needed to feed children and families in new settings. We developed outreach tools and campaigns to help families find food; and we successfully advocated for new state and federal policies including emergency food benefits.
In less than a decade, we’ve raised and deployed over $100 million and helped change the way that school leaders address child hunger in and around the school day. Fueled by deep investments in the Monday Fund, we’ve built a national field team to help schools stand up strong and sustainable meal programs, we’ve mobilized Governors, Mayors and school leaders to address child hunger in ways that are scalable and sustainable, and successfully fought for better child nutrition policies at the state and federal level. And while school meals and summer meals remain a cornerstone of our work, we are now expanding our work to connect families to food and financial resources to prevent hunger at home and to reach babies and children before school age. Thank you to our donors and stakeholders for believing in this work and investing so deeply in our vision.
We want to express our deepest gratitude to Monday Fund leadership and early supporters for making this work possible.
Campaign Leadership
Monday Fund Co-Chairs
Carrie and Leigh Abramson
Renee and John Grisham
Monday Fund Honorary Chairs
Ayesha and Stephen Curry
Sam Kass
Rachael Ray
Monday Fund Executive Council Members
Karen and Michael Gordon
Shannon Hunt-Scott
Amanda and Gladstone Jones III
Dorothy McAuliffe
Donna Morea
Tara Nicholson Olson
Sally Robling
Tina and Steve Romaniello
Foundational Supporters
Our ability to respond to the COVID-19 crisis and subsequently scale our work through this expanded Monday Fund effort is due in large part to our foundational supporters. We are so thankful for your belief in us to end childhood hunger.
Lead Investors
($5 million and above)
Anonymous
Blue Meridian Partners, COVID-19 Response Fund
MacKenzie Scott
Change Makers Circle
($1 million to $4,999,999 million)
Anonymous (3)
Ayesha and Stephen Curry’s Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation
Bezos Family Foundation
Builders Initiative
Blue Meridian Partners, COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund
Diane and Dorothy Brooks Foundation
The Crimson Lion Foundation
The Families and Workers Fund
Karen and Michael Gordon
The HAWK Foundation
Margot B. Perot and Family
The Poses Family Foundation
Mary Quick and Jim Daras
The Racheal Ray Foundation
The Roots and Wings Foundation
Elena and Scott Shleifer
Stupski Foundation
Opportunity Accelerators
($500,000 to $999,999 million)
Anonymous (2)
Angell Foundation
Michelle and Michael Hagerty
Molly and Robert Hardie
Martha and Bruce Karsh
Susan and Lee Klarich
Leon Lowenstein Foundation
Audrey and Danny Meyer
Donna Morea and Jeffrey D. Chandler
The Revlis Foundation
Ali Wentworth and George Stephanopoulos
Community Builders
($250,000 to $499,999)
Anonymous
Carrie and Leigh Abramson
Anne and Walter Clark
HedgeServ
Jeanne and Gary Newman
Anna Reilly and Matthew Cullinan
Tina and Steve Romaniello
The Scott Family Foundation
Nancy and Harold Zirkin
School Meal Connectors
($100,000 to $249,999)
Anonymous (2)
AT&T Louisiana
Judy Avery
Jeanine and Alastair Borthwick
Anne C. Flick and Neil S. Braun
Joanne Chang and Christopher Myers
Clarence and Anne Dillon Dunwalke Trust
Clayton & Odessa Lang Ofstad Foundation, Bank of America, N.A., Co-Trustee
Becky and Munroe Cobey
J. Michael and Mary Anne Cook
Cora and John H. Davis Foundation
Edelman Family Foundation
Fanny and Stephen Rosenak Family Foundation
The Gary W. Rollins Foundation
Amanda and Gladstone Jones III
JPB Foundation
James M. Kendall
KPMG Foundation
New Balance Foundation
The Rimora Foundation
Sally and Steve Robling
Sentara Healthcare
Mary Solomon
Stairway Fund
Katie Workman and the Workman Family