unBox is a youth-led organization working to unite and empower young people to fight US food insecurity.

Active from April 2020 to April 2023, unBox is no longer running programming! But our community—through food systems work and beyond—continues to strive towards a more just and sustainable world.

Explore unBox’s 3 years of youth-led food security and justice action.

We envision a future where everyone has dignified access to fresh, nutritious, affordable food, and has a seat at the table in building that future.

We connect young people with the tools, training, and networks needed to transform US food policy through research, policy advocacy, and activism. unBox members work with our community-based, policy, and academic partners to support equitable US food systems change at the local, state, and federal level.

33 YOUTH FELLOWS

14 STATES

20 ADVISORS

What We Do

  • SNAP Online

    In March 2020, when COVID-19 began spreading rapidly across the US, it was almost impossible to use SNAP (food stamps) to order groceries online for curbside pick-up or delivery.

    We worked to help change that. And we continue to research, advocate, and rally to support the equitable expansion of this program.

  • Child Nutrition

    1 in 6 US children is food insecure. There are proven solutions to this crisis. School lunches, children’s food benefits, and anti-poverty cash assistance are demonstrated, powerful tools for empowering child food security.

    We must fight with tool we have to end child hunger in the US.

  • Social Service Referrals

    The right social service referral can change a life. However, the online tools designed to provide social workers and individuals with information about social services are often out-of-date, hard to navigate, available only in English, and not mobile-friendly.

    We are working to help improve social service referral websites because communities deserve better tools, created with them and for them.

  • Senior Nutrition

    Honoring, respecting, and supporting our elderly Americans means fighting to ensure none go hungry.

  • Immigrant Food Security

    Immigrants feed the United States. About 73% of all US farmworkers are immigrants, and 48% are undocumented. In California, 75% of farmworkers are undocumented immigrants, and by some estimates, almost half suffer from food insecurity. (Image credit: independent artist commission for the CA Food4All Coalition)

    The communities that cultivate this land and nourish its fellow residents should not go hungry.

  • College Food Security

    38% of college students faced food insecurity in 2020. While COVID-19 has worsened the crisis, many college students faced profound basic needs challenges long before the pandemic.

    Many of us are students and recent graduates ourselves, and we refuse to accept this.

  • Local Food Businesses

    Local BIPOC-owned food businesses help empower community food security, food access, and economic resilience. Discriminatory policies and funding biases nonetheless make it more difficult for BIPOC-owned food entrepreneurs to grow their businesses.

    We are working to support diverse, local, sustainable food entrepreneurship.

Read 30+ editions of the unBox newsletter here!