WHY History

In September 1973, Harry Chapin was a guest on my ABC radio network show “On This Rock”. After the show he invited me to his house for dinner. During dinner I suggested that we put together another Bangladesh concert but have this one to benefit the millions of people who were starving in Africa at that time. Harry’s great line was “I’m no George Harrison but let’s give it a try.” We did try with the UN but did not succeed. What we learned was a very valuable lesson. Even if we had succeeded and raised a million dollars with the concert and then raised a million each night for a year it would still have been a drop in the bucket. We realized that we needed a lifelong commitment to ending hunger starting right here in the USA. That, in a nutshell, is how we founded WHY in 1975.

As you probably remember, Harry died in an auto accident in 1981. Most people thought WHY would die with him but his family, and many of his fans and friends made sure that did not happen. WHY has continued the tradition that we started by staying focused on several fundamental principles.

We promote self-reliance. We work with almost 5,000 community-based organizations that have innovative programs, which go beyond giving people emergency food and shelter. They help people to help themselves through job-training programs, child- care, permanent housing, community economic development, healthcare, addiction counseling and more. These are wonderful programs run by hard-working, caring people. Every day they create miracles in the lives of thousands of Americans. The problem is they are almost all under funded and understaffed. WHY serves the servers. We help these folks to raise money from performers, foundations, the government, businesses and individual people with generous hearts as a part of our Reinvesting In America program. We help a few of the very best of these organizations to replicate their programs in other communities. We also provide them with vital information on hunger and poverty and connections with the media, government and national, state and local organizations.

Every day we respond to the emergency food needs of poor and hungry Americans through our National Hunger Hotline. Each month we serve more than 1,500 of our fellow citizens from all across America who are hungry. The hotline provides crucial assistance to hungry Americans in need of emergency assistance. We not only listen, we act. We connect individuals in need to emergency food in their own communities through our extensive network of community-based organizations. We connect people to government feeding and poverty programs including Food Stamps, WIC (Woman, Infants and Children Supplemental Food Program) Summer Feeding, School Breakfast, and Earned Income Tax credit. WHY also refers callers to community services that provide job training and placement, transitional and permanent housing, child care and more.

We tell the story of hunger and poverty. Our Harry Chapin Media Awards honor the best reporting on hunger and poverty each year in the fields of newspapers, books, electronic media, magazines and photojournalism. The annual forum brings together some of the finest journalists with folks from community based organizations, students and government officials to discuss the role the media should play in reporting about these issues. Each Thanksgiving we broadcast our Hungerthon on a half a dozen Infinity radio stations with information to almost a million people.

Our Kids Can Make A Difference program teaches children about hunger and poverty and how to make a difference in their communities. Our curriculum is in 1,000 schools.

During our long history, we have also created some remarkable organizations. The New York Hunger Hotline, which we founded in 1978 has helped more than a million people to receive emergency food and has been a catalyst in the creation of hundreds of food pantries and soup kitchens in New York City. Long Island Cares, which WHY started in 1982, was one of the first suburban food banks and has distributed millions of pounds of food to the people of Long Island. The Center For Food Policy in New Jersey, which WHY founded in 1978, coordinates food policy for the whole state of New Jersey and affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of hungry people each year.

If you would like to know more about WHY, explore our web site or call us at (800) 5-HUNGRY. We appreciate your interest and any tax-deductible donation you might make.

Best regards,
Bill Ayres
Executive Director and Co-Founder
WHY