"Giving back doesn’t have to be a grand gesture—it starts with all of us doing something small."

Peter's Story

It was the beginning of the recession and we had a lot of hungry people. I would watch the news and they kept mentioning the Community Food Bank. They couldn’t do it without donations, and that’s when I thought, if everybody gave just one can a week, we could solve this.

I started with just 10 homes. I would knock on the door and introduce myself, and say I’m going to collect for the Food Bank, and they would give me whatever they had. I would get those 10, and then I would do 10 more. It took me 10 months to get through my neighborhood. Then I just kept it up, and I am still doing it today. It started to grow and people were paying attention to it because it was a different idea.

Every Sunday I take an hour and a half to go around my neighborhood and collect cans. It’s a good feeling. And I’m just going to keep collecting.