Online Ordering Service Helps Antihunger Group Raise Money

A partnership between Delivery.com, an online service for food and other supplies, and City Harvest, an antihunger organization in New York, is allowing people to make gifts that help feed more than 300,000 people each week.

Last year the 28-year-old City Harvest delivered to local food pantries about 28 million pounds of food from restaurants and the like that would otherwise have gone to waste.

Delivery.com customers have two ways to support City Harvest.

One is to donate “points.” Delivery.com customers receive 25 points per $1 they have spent through the site and can either redeem them for items such as T-shirts and coffee mugs or use them to make donations: A typical exchange is 10,000 points for $5 worth of donations.

Or anybody — not just customers — can give by ordering from City Harvest’s Delivery.com “menu” page.

Both options for giving will be available until April 15, when the campaign ends.

Robyn Stein, director of partnership and events at City Harvest, says Delivery.com approached her organization with an offer to help. “We’re excited they’re helping us raise money for hungry people,” she says.

The ability to donate through the City Harvest menu page began January 13. Instead of placing an order for a personal delivery, people can choose items to donate to City Harvest, from feeding two New Yorkers for a week for $3 to donating $5 for 21 pounds of food. The total amount of the transaction is then sent to City Harvest.

“The menu makes it easy for people to see the impact that their donation will have,” Ms. Stein says.

Jonathan Mark, vice president of marketing at Delivery.com, says he hopes to write a check to City Harvest for $10,000 by the time the effort ends. He says he’d like to expand the program so customers can write in donations at checkout or round up the change for a donation.