MEALSHARE FOUNDERS’ FIGHT AGAINST HUNGER CATCHES ATTENTION OF GOVERNOR GENERAL
Andrew Hall is the first to admit he has a dream job — a dream job he played a big part in creating. “When we first thought about it, it seemed like a pipe dream,” he says of his not-for-profit company Mealshare (mealshare.ca), its mission no less than wiping out child and youth hunger.
It’s a ridiculously simple concept: choose an item from the menu at a local restaurant that bears the Mealshare logo, and help feed a child in need.
“We have so much fun and at the same time can make a positive impact,” he says of the company he and his cousin, Jeremy Bryant, created four years ago. “We are just so lucky to be doing what we are doing.”
This past Saturday, the office of the Governor General of Canada announced that Hall and Bryant would be among the Canadians to receive a Meritorious Service Decoration (civil division) later this year.
The award, which has been given out since 1984, recognizes citizens “for exceptional deeds that bring honour to our country.” The decorations form part of the program that includes the Order of Canada, the highest service award bestowed upon Canadians.
On Monday, Hall takes time out of a typically busy day overseeing Mealshare, which today boasts more than 300 partner restaurants across the country, to talk about this latest accolade. “We were pretty shocked and happy to hear about it,” says Hall, who today calls Vancouver home. “It is such a huge honour.”
When he and Bryant first came up with the idea for their charityminded initiative in 2013, winning awards was the last thing on their minds. “We wanted to do something that would use our business backgrounds but also align with our values,” says Hall, who along with Bryant is just 28 years old.
Initially inspired by Oceanwise, a campaign that partners with restaurants to ensure menus have ocean-friendly seafood choices, the two thought they could apply the simple concept to helping feed society’s most vulnerable citizens.
“We first thought maybe we should open our own restaurant, with a buy-one, give-one component,” he says. “But running a restaurant wasn’t part of our skill sets or passions.”
Not long after graduating from university — Hall got a business degree from the University of Victoria, while Bryant has his accounting degree from the University of Alberta — each settled into good jobs with big corporations.
“There was something lacking,” says Hall who, like his cousin, was raised in a community-minded family. “We really wanted to do something that incorporated those values in our working lives.”
A visit to a regular dining haunt in 2013 set them on their current path. They told Dairy Lane owners Jodi and Shayne Perrin about their meal-sharing idea.
The couple loved it and, like so many others who would join them over the next four years, signed up to be one of Mealshare’s first partners, bringing the campaign to Dairy Lane and their other dining spot, Blue Star Diner.
In Calgary, charities like the Calgary Drop-In Centre and the Calgary Food Bank have benefited from the program, which employs six other employees across the country along with Hall and Bryant, who last year won the Air Miles Small Business Achievement Award in the social venture category. While they draw salaries, 70 per cent of the funds collected go directly to the charities after administration and programming expenses.
When a menu item bearing the Mealshare logo is chosen, one dollar goes to a charity that feeds the hungry, such as a food bank, drop-in centre or school program. That simple concept, says Hall, has translated to more than 1.7 million meals being provided over the past four years; more Canadian cities have signed on, while American cities like Austin, Texas, have also come on board.
Hall says that while there has been much success, he and Bryant have even bigger plans for the future. “We hope to be in 2,000 restaurants over the next five years, with more than five million meals provided,” he says.
“Jeremy and I want to be able to tell our grandkids that there used to be a time when there was youth hunger,” he says of his ultimate goal, “and we want them to be shocked to hear that.”