Help Fight Hunger With AAA

AAA Northeast is joining forces with 19 other clubs to fill food pantries, kitchens and plates through this year’s AAA Road to Hunger Relief campaign.

Starting June 1, food donation boxes will be placed in all 65 branches across the AAA Northeast territory and administrative offices. Employees will volunteer shoulder to shoulder with members at various events, including, collecting donations curbside at grocery stores, preparing food for those in need and stocking shelves at pantries.

Donations will be distributed through Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks.

Find out how you can participate. More volunteer opportunities will be added closer to June.

A Growing Need

The first coordinated national charitable campaign in AAA’s modern history, the goal of the AAA Road to Hunger Relief is to provide 3.5 million meals across the nation.

More than 14 million children in the U.S. don’t have enough food to eat or don’t have access to healthy food, and more than 47 million people face hunger across every U.S. community, according to Feeding America.

Food insecurity is especially prevalent in the summer when children don’t have access to free school meals and donations to food banks decrease, which is why the campaign will continue through June.

Getting Involved

“We had great success last year with our hunger campaign volunteering with members,” said Maggie McMenemy, a branch manager and co-leader of the AAA Northeast Member Engagement team with district branch manager Tom Ryan. “This year we hope to increase the number of members involved and the number of events.”

In 2024, AAA Northeast employees and members prepared meals for 400 families and collected 550 food items outside of a grocery store in Rhode Island as part of last year’s many community service projects.

Volunteers also got to directly interact with the people they were helping. Ryan recalled meeting an elderly couple at a food bank in Providence whose rent increase had strained their finances, forcing them to choose between rent and food.

For the Road to Hunger Relief, AAA Northeast is aiming to organize 30 community events, including stuffing car trunks with food, accepting donations outside of stores, volunteering at pantries and preparing food. Groups of all ages are encouraged to sign up. AAA-branded patches and stickers are available for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

“The goal is to impact as many people as we can,” Ryan said. “To increase the number of families served, the number of pounds of food collected, delivered and prepared. That’s how we measure success.”

High-Priority Donations

Please consider donating these most-needed items:

• Tuna
• Canned soups
• Cereal
• Shelf-stable milk
• Peanut butter and jelly
• Oatmeal
• Rice
• Pasta and pasta sauce

Sign up for hunger relief and other community events near you or send a message to memberengagementgroup@aaanortheast.com.

Featured image: Member services counselor Tawana Hargis fills boxes at the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.