Fighting Food Insecurity in California, One Lunch at a Time

Meet Daily Point of Light Award honoree Landon To. Read his story, and nominate an outstanding volunteer or family as a Daily Point of Light.

At just 12 years old, Landon To helped launch The Lunchmakers, a youth-led initiative to fight food insecurity and homelessness in California. What began as a small project during the COVID-19 pandemic—packing bagged lunches for those who needed them—has since grown into a thriving movement under his leadership. Now, as the organization’s president, Landon has expanded The Lunchmakers to 13 chapters across four counties, inspiring over 100 youth volunteers, ages 3 to 17, to participate in service. Together, they have provided more than 32,000 meals to six nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping unhoused individuals.

Landon’s passion for service goes beyond organizing volunteers—he has worked tirelessly to secure funding so that any child who wants to help can do so without financial barriers. Through grant writing, crowdfunding efforts and strategic outreach, he has made it possible for schools and families to engage in meaningful service without the burden of covering food costs. Thanks to his efforts, three schools have integrated The Lunchmakers into their programs, providing a consistent opportunity for students to engage in hands-on community service.

Beyond meal-making, Landon has also stepped into the role of a mentor and advocate. He has organized and funded multiple service events for local preschools, helping young children learn the importance of giving back. He has also presented The Lunchmakers’ impact to audiences of all sizes, including more than 800 schoolteachers, demonstrating how youth-led service can be both effective and inspiring. His leadership has proven that kids of all ages can make a real difference when given the opportunity.

As he prepares for his next chapter, Landon remains committed to ensuring the long-term sustainability of The Lunchmakers. He is actively mentoring the next acting head of the organization, ensuring that the values of accessibility, community and service remain at the heart of the initiative. While Landon attributes the organization’s success to its members, his dedication to building a structured, stress-free and meaningful service experience has made it easier than ever for young volunteers to step up and make an impact.

Tell us about your volunteer role.

As the acting head, my more specialized roles include outreach to potential partnerships, like schools and youth cohorts, that are interested in joining. I am involved in fundraising to help make Lunchmakers an accessible project to all youth. This fundraising has included doing a GoFundMe, writing grant proposals and being interviewed. I’ve taken a role in spreading service education and values of service to many of our youth participants, giving small speeches in front of kids and more.

I also help organize lunchmaking events where many volunteers come together and bag lunches. Organizing usually consisted of reaching out to families and sometimes school staff, and coordinating dates that work with everyone. I’ll also be giving a light mentorship to the next acting head of Lunchmakers once I leave for college. On a more basic member level, I help lead an ongoing bimonthly Lunchmakers group in my own school, and I often just pack lunches during our lunchmaking dates. It varies month to month based on whether there are any events or grants that I’m writing.

What inspired you to get started with this initiative?

I wasn’t the one who actually started The Lunchmakers. It was my younger sibling and his cohort of elementary school friends. My mom eventually phased me in and I kind of just naturally assumed the role of acting head. I first really started to get involved in fundraising. Lunchmakers is a completely donation driven, out-of-pocket organization, so there is an aspect of a financial burden on our participants to buy all the foodstuff to package and donate.

Although it was a functional system, I didn’t really feel right about it. Paying to do service work seems like a bit too much to ask our volunteers, and I also felt that we were turning away potential participants who were deterred by buying lunch materials. That was the main reason I started fundraising, and being the person in charge of that, I naturally assumed more responsibilities and I eventually wound up as acting head. My main goal is still to make service work as accessible and user-friendly as possible, getting rid of deterrents like paywalls and monotonous vibes.

Why is this issue so important to you?

I live in San Francisco, which is a great city, but it is also infamous for our issues surrounding homelessness. For most residents, it’s expected that you’ll see a couple of unhoused people almost every day. After the pandemic, when many people were unable to sustain themselves and were forced out to the streets, the rates of homelessness got worse. I believe that as residents of San Francisco, we should chip in a bit to help our city thrive. In my case I think food is a basic right and happiness that every resident living here should be afforded.

What are your long-term plans or goals for the organization?

Next year I’ll be applying for colleges and the year after that I’ll be gone. Naturally, there will be a gap that someone needs to fill once I’m gone. My hope is that even when I’m gone from the role as acting head, I’ve laid enough groundwork and scaffolding for whoever takes the role next to perform my duties to an extent better than what I could do.

One thing I’m working on right now is writing a small service curriculum targeted towards preschoolers and elementary schoolers, and we’re hopefully going to run a couple of schools once that’s done. The main goal is that Lunchmakers can become a self-sufficient organization, maybe even a small subsidiary nonprofit at some point, but that’s a lot of paperwork.

What’s been the most rewarding part of your work?

I think for me it’s the knowledge that my efforts have resulted in tangible change and excitement in service work in youth cohorts and communities. A lot of younger kids and students are interested in starting Lunchmaker clubs at their own schools, which is always nice to hear.

Why is it important for others to get involved with causes they care about?

In general if there’s something you’re unsatisfied with, you can always hope that the person in charge will accommodate your needs and listen to you, but that isn’t always the case. The best way to see a satisfactory result that you want is to take control yourself. In the context of service and volunteering, if there’s something in your community or world you’re unsatisfied with, the best way to make local change at least is to take action yourself or rally people behind you. Eventually local change becomes more widespread, and before you know it your impact has grown much farther than you could’ve imagined.

Any advice for people who want to start volunteering?

No need to go all in at the start. Just dabble a bit, see what works for you. There are a lot of different things you could do. You could do 100% interaction when serving in a food shelter, or you could do 0% interaction and pick up trash and help out at your local park. Just find something that you’re comfortable with that doesn’t stress you out.

What do you want people to learn from your story?

Even if you feel like you don’t have any ambition or maybe any drive for service work, there’s always small things you can do to help out your community. You don’t need some big position or need to go to your local food shelter every week. Sometimes service just means picking up the trash your friend left behind, holding the door open for strangers. Just do whatever you’re comfortable with. Another one of my personal beliefs is that service shouldn’t be a required experience that feels monotonous or like a hassle, we should do whatever we can to make it engaging, interesting and educational.

Do you want to make a difference in your community like Landon? Find local volunteer opportunities.