Over the years we’ve covered the stories of a lot of different individuals who have done an array of amazing things: from cleaning up miles of polluted rivers to housing the homeless, from working with at-risk inner city kids to conserving precious public lands. Every now and then, we like to touch base with one of our previous eChievement Award winners to see how things are going. We first visited with Syd Mandelbaum way back in 1997. Through friends, he’d become aware of the large amounts of perfectly edible left-over back stage food at concerts. Normally that food was simply thrown into the garbage and hauled away but Syd decided that that was a waste he couldn’t allow.
Syd founded Rock and Wrap It Up! in 1991, an organization dedicated to feeding the hungry and teaching how to use contracts to obligate excess food from events.
They started small, but when MTV did a piece on the organization, the exposure led to working with huge groups like The Rolling Stones and Aerosmith. Syd already had great results when we first spoke to him in 1997, but since our initial interview, the effort has grown and expanded, helping millions more people in the process.
Now in its 24th year, Rock and Wrap it Up!’s donors include touring bands, educational institutions, the hospitality industry, professional sports teams, hospitals and TV/film shoots throughout North America. They find and vet partner agencies who need and can share these resources with the poor. They strive to empower school partners to broaden their academic horizons by advocating for utilization of the Whole Earth Calculator Lesson plans which reduces both poverty and carbon footprints.
Over one billion meals have been recovered since 1991.
Contact Information:
Phone: 1-877-691-FOOD
Address: 405 Oceanpoint Ave., Cedarhurst, NY