Moveable Feast (organization)

During the epidemic of HIV/AIDS in the United States, Baltimore City Health Department official Robert Mehl persuaded the city's mayor at the time, Kurt Schmoke, to direct him to form a committee to address the ongoing crisis within their region.[1] Mehl, original founder of the organization, was himself diagnosed with AIDS in 1985.[3] Members of the founding committee included Robert Mehl, Joseph Lawrence Myers III, Skip Harting, David Glasser, Yvonne Veney, Esther Baker, and Sean Carriler.[1] Services to the community based on this initiative first began in 1989.[4] After deliberations within the committee, the organization Moveable Feast was formed in 1990.[1]

The organization was structured as a nonprofit organization with the aim of benefiting the local community through social services.[4] It signed a US$3,000 contract in 1990 with the Baltimore City Health Department to bring food to AIDS patients.[3] It operated in 1990 out of the Heritage United Church of Christ located in Northwest Baltimore.[3] That year, the organization began providing services of two food portions biweekly to their 60 total clients, with a staff of three people.[1][3] Its 1990 operating budget was $54,000, and they were provided both office space and telecommunications services via Baltimore's health department.[3]

Individuals provided services by the organization began at ten and soon thereafter increased to over 150.[1] Delivery of meals was assisted by fellow organizations Groceries to Go, Ryan White Medical Transportation, and People On the Move.[1] In 2001, after seeing publicity about the organization on television, Karen Brewer was inspired to help Moveable Feast.[5] She organized an initiative of volunteers at her home in Ellicott City, Maryland, to bake monthly desserts which she then delivered to Moveable Feast.[5] Brewer brought together approximately 50 bakers from Howard County, Maryland, and the surrounding area to bake goods for her project.[5]

In 2001, Moveable Feast provided food and services to about 550 people in Baltimore and 13 additional counties.[5] The organization started an initiative in 2003 to teach individuals how to create meals so as to gain employment in the food services sector themselves.[1][6] Culinary Arts and Life Skills Training Program training chef William J. Antonio told the Baltimore Afro-American that trainees in the program included prisoners on parole, homeless shelters, and halfway houses.[6]

The culinary training program graduated 11 people in 2004.[6] Transportation of meals directly to clients was broadened from HIV/AIDS to those afflicted with breast cancer and subsequently other ailments as well.[1] In 2004, Moveable Feast provided food and services to more than 700 people five-days-per-week, and maintained a staff of 32 individuals in addition to volunteers.[6]

Victor Basile served as executive director of the organization in 2007.[4] Dietitians craft the quality of the meals for recipients.[4] Executive director Basile described the clientele of the organization to The Baltimore Sun, stating: "These are pretty sick people. They're all poor. They're sick, so they don't have jobs. All of our services are free".[4]

Its services in 2007 were focused on clientele suffering from additional diseases including those with a terminal illness.[4] The organization took up residence in 2008 at 901 N. Milton Avenue in Baltimore.[1] In 2009, the event Gay Expectations Too as part of the University of Baltimore live performance series Spotlight UB, helped raise US$2,400 for the organization.[7] By 2010, the organization's region of service had expanded from merely Baltimore to include all of the Eastern Shore of Maryland.[7] Barcoding Inc. General counsel Jeffery Zinn served on the board of the organization in 2011, and while simultaneously working in its kitchen.[8] He told The Daily Record it was his favorite activity outside of work.[8]

In 2013 the organization received a $200,000 unrestricted grant from Bank of America.[9] This was given by its charitable foundation arm, through its awards initiative called Neighborhood Builders.[9] Moveable Feast said it would use the funding to create a distribution center on the Eastern Shore of Maryland so as to better service their clients in that area with sustenance.[9] Additionally the grant assisted the organization to obtain new kitchen capital purchases, and train staff with leadership skills.[9]

In an early profile in 1990 by The Washington Post, the paper described the initiative as a "Baltimore organization that delivers bountiful portions of healthful meals to AIDS patients who are homebound".[3] The Baltimore Afro-American noted the importance of volunteering to the organization, especially after cutbacks by the U.S. federal government in the amount of support they were previously given: "Volunteers at Moveable Feast work as kitchen assistants, delivery drivers, bakers and clerical assistants, and they are even more important now that federal funding cuts have eliminated 5 percent of the organization's annual budget."[6] The Baltimore Sun described it as an important "group that feeds the sick" in the Baltimore area.[4] In December 2014, Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake recognized the company SC&H as a recipient of the Mayor's Business Recognition Awards for outstanding community service, because of their annual day of service arranging for their employees to volunteer at Moveable Feast and other organizations.[10]

Moveable Feast was featured in the 2013 season premier of the television show The Secret Millionaire in which Anne Beiler, the founder of Auntie Anne's pretzel company, masqueraded as a volunteer, then made a donation to the charity.[11]

• Baltimore Community Foundation
• Pride Center of Maryland
• Save a Heart Foundation, Baltimore

• Official website