Yard Food Pantry Goes Viral
- Pamela Palongue
- 6 hours ago
- 2 min read
The world of AJ Owen suddenly got a whole lot bigger when he reached out to the community with compassion.
In November 2025, AJ Owen explained to his children that people were going to lose their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and they might go hungry. “My two children are 7 and 9 years old, and I’ve always wanted them to be knowledgeable about what is going on in the world around them.”
Kids often see things pretty simply, and their response to the news was, “Well, we should go out and buy food to give to people.” It would have been easy at that point for AJ to explain the difficulties of their simple solution—how hard it would be to set something up in their Whitehall neighborhood, the cost of the extra food, and the difficulty of organizing it. But instead, AJ decided to do just what they said. He quickly turned their compassion into action.
“We never really had a plan when beginning our food pantry. We took an old plastic tote full of Christmas lights and scribbled through the label. We filled it with food and set it in front of our house.” And with that, the now-famous food pantry was begun.
“People get caught up in thinking they need a permanent structure, a fancy sign and a plan,” he adds, “when it really is as simple as buying groceries and doing it.”
Postings about the little food pantry went viral, with millions of views. Others began to donate to the effort, with food and even a tent for the pantry. One of the donors was Pittsburgh Steelers defensive lineman Yahya Black. He just showed up one day with hundreds of dollars in food, which began a friendship between the two men.
When the Steelers played the Baltimore Ravens, Yahya gave game tickets to AJ. Then, when January rolled around, AJ was even more surprised when Yahya presented him with Super Bowl tickets!
AJ and his brother headed to Santa Clara and Levi’s Stadium for the big game. It was the experience of a lifetime!
Although the nationwide interest has been phenomenal, AJ and his children didn’t start the pantry for recognition or attention. It was just a simple idea to help others. And their example has caught fire. Many people across the country have been inspired to start their own pop-up food pantries.
“Being the family that inspired others across the nation to start food pantries is an indescribable feeling—joy, hope, love and so many other emotions. I don’t think my children will really know the extent of what we did until they are much older. Some days it feels like that for me as well.
“My kids think it’s totally normal to have a huge tent shelter full of food in your front yard.”
AJ has been encouraged by the stories of many of the pantry visitors, who come from all walks of life and have been overwhelmed with gratitude. As far as the future of the front-yard pantry, he simply says, “As long as we have food to give, we will continue to help feed our neighbors.”
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