PITTSBURGH — A massive donation is feeding families in Pittsburgh and beyond and it’s all thanks to a Pittsburgh teenager.
“It doesn’t hurt to ask,” said 13-year-old Ender Lin.
13-year-old Ender Lin saw a need at his neighborhood food pantry, so the City of Pittsburgh teen wrote letters to major cereal companies asking for help.
“He wrote to the CEOs and any other positions that seemed like it would care about this, and we are in awe that Kellogg’s responded,” said Ender Lin’s mother, Claire Topal.
Ender wrote this letter to the CEO of Kellogg’s in November. On Jan. 7, nearly 20,000 boxes of cereal showed up to the JFCS Squirrel Hill Food Pantry.
“I didn’t expect how big they would say yes and this much cereal,” said Lin.
“Thankful,” said JFCS Squirrel Hill Food Pantry director Jesse Sharrard. “We’re going to be able to use maybe 50-60 cases of cereal for our pantry and then the remainder, thousands more, are going to be able to go out through 11 counties.”
Jesse Sharrard says just their food pantry sees about 500 families.
“We saw a huge spike last November when we were facing that SNAP gap crisis,” said Sharrard. “We saw triple the number of families come through our food pantry.”
That’s when Ender made his request.
It wasn’t the first time he wrote to companies asking them to help his community. Last Spring, it was spices, and the asks are not stopping at cereal.
“Keep going and see if I can get some other things for the food pantries,” said Lin.
“I think Ender’s like ‘Hey, maybe everybody could write some letters and see what happens,’” said Topal. “It makes me feel great. He’s a wonderful young man, and we’re very proud of him. We love him, and we know this comes straight from his heart.”
The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, who partners with JFCS Squirrel Hill Food Pantry, says while this donation is massive, they’ll go through all of that cereal in about two to three weeks.
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