Musically Fed’s mission is simple – to feed the hungry.
The Scottsdale-based nonprofit works with musicians, promoters and venues to donate excess tour and backstage catering to the food insecure, homeless and veteran community.
Musically Fed’s work is personal for its founder, Maria Brunner, whose late husband was a Vietnam vet.
“When he passed away, it became very evident that we should all know more about our vets,” Brunner says. “I felt that in the music industry, we have the opportunity to give back if we can just figure out how to do it.”
In the U.S., nearly 40 percent of leftover food from concerts and festivals is wasted each year. With 30 years of experience in the music business, Brunner witnessed this firsthand and decided to step in.
With help from Live Nation, Arizona Catering and Talking Resort Stick Arena, Musically Fed was able to initially provide more than 300 meals to the community. Now, they serve more than 6,000 meals a year throughout Arizona. Last year, The Zac Brown Band and Fleetwood Mac invited Musically Fed on their national tours to feed those in need across the country. They were also invited to the Grammy Awards and generated nearly 20,000 meals throughout the Los Angeles area.
Then the pandemic hit.
“We have no tours. We have no concerts,” Brunner says. “How do we remain relevant?”
Musically Fed teamed up with Phoenix-based production company Rhino Staging to feed 30 families every Wednesday, putting together packages of food and delivering it to people’s cars. Each family is provided with a produce box sourced from local farms, a dry goods box put together by Resurrection Street Ministry in Mesa and dessert boxes. In the past few weeks, Handlebar J has donated 140 meals, El Pollo Loco has supplied tubs of food and an anonymous donor contributed a 15-pound turkey for each box. Downtown Phoenix restaurant and bar The Duce has also donated.
Brunner plans to keep the initiative going for “as long as it needs to go on.” They’ve expanded to helping the food insecure in Denver and are lining up a program for Las Vegas and Nashville.
“Then, once the concert industry comes back, I think this program is needed more than ever,” she says. “I’m so impressed by what everybody’s doing and I hope this sticks with us, this doesn’t go away.”
Photo by Shari Corbett
