“You’ve brought breakfast!”
That was what the man sitting peacefully on the curb outside the Friendship Place Welcome Center exclaimed as juniors Naveen Joshi and Dillon Leblanc—two of the three Hunger Aid club heads—walked towards him with bags of groceries and baked goods. He excitedly followed them inside as they set the food down on the kitchen table.
Every Thursday during community time, the three Hunger Aid heads—Joshi, Leblanc and junior Shira Wenthe—along with a few other students congregate in the Forum before walking two blocks and hand-delivering food to the Friendship Place Welcome Center. The Welcome Center distributes living essentials such as food, personal hygiene items and survival kits to people who need them. In 2024, the Welcome Center provided critical services to 1,219 people living on the streets.
Joshi and Leblanc started the club last year, and junior Shira Wenthe became the third co-head this year.
Joshi said seeing the undernourished people of Tenleytown inspired him to create Hunger Aid alongside Leblanc. Both Joshi and Wenthe acknowledged that, while there had been clubs and organizations created by GDS students to address hunger in the past, there wasn’t a consistent option for eager volunteers hoping to make a difference.
“We felt like a lot of GDS clubs didn’t actually do anything with the community, and we thought it would be important to have a club that actually did stuff,” Leblanc said, “that actually helped people in the community.”
“[Friendship Place] had done partnerships with GDS in the past, so I could get their contact info pretty easily,” Joshi explained. “And it just made sense. They were the closest ones. And they also have a lot of people counting on them.”
“Some of them [the recipients of the food] recognize us sometimes, and we talk to them. Some of them talk to us about what’s going on [in their lives],” Leblanc said. “Sometimes they just say ‘thank you,’ but it’s nice to get to know them and to understand that they’re people too.”
According to Wenthe, the club’s consistent support to Friendship Place has created a tight bond between club members and unhoused residents. “You get to say hi to the local people and connect with them, and so it’s a very personal experience,” Wenthe said.
Over Thanksgiving Break, Hunger Aid arranged an out-of-school event at Francis on the Hill, a nonprofit that aims to supply impoverished communities with food and clothing and also regularly cleans up the area around Meridian Hill Park in Adams Morgan. The food-drive in November attracted students across all grade levels in the high school and yielded two hundred bags of fresh food.
“That was good,” Joshi said, “to get out and work with different organizations. And I think they [Francis on the Hill] were pretty appreciative.” Joshi also hopes to involve some of GDS’ lower/middle school students in future food drives.
Joshi, Leblanc and Wenthe hope to expand Hunger Aid’s operations beyond Tenleytown and even the DMV. “The walks help us to address the problem of food insecurity right by GDS, but I think we want to do more across D.C. and even across the U.S. in the future,” Wenthe said. “I think the first step would probably be just working with immediate schools in the area, like Sidwell and Jackson-Reed, and getting them in touch so that we can impact across more of D.C.”
While the club has been consistent in making their donations to Friendship Place every Thursday, missing just three weeks since they began their walks on Oct. 29, Hunger Aid sometimes struggles with participation numbers—on average, the club has five or six people, including the three club heads, who participate in the walk each Thursday.
“Some people will just bring food and stay at the school,” Joshi said. “That’s fair, because it [the walk] is kind of extra, but I do think the walks help you get a sense of where this food’s actually going.
“Sometimes there’s little turnout, but we always have somebody,” Leblanc said.
Wenthe said that Hunger Aid hasn’t been the only club struggling with this engagement problem. “This year especially, I’ve noticed across a lot of clubs that club participation has gone down,” she said.
Reflecting on her experience with Hunger Aid, Wenthe said that consistency is key when making a change. “If you’re trying to make a difference, doing something once to address an issue isn’t enough. I think it’s important to keep working at something so that you can see the benefits go a long way.”
As for Leblanc, he had a very straightforward message for other students aspiring to make a tangible difference: “Don’t be afraid to start something and to go out there and make your voice heard.”