On a cloudy Sunday in July, volunteers from Embrace Relief and the New Spring Foundation loaded boxes full of fresh ground beef onto Embrace Relief’s mobile market. Once it was full, the bus hit the road, bound for nearby New Jersey towns like Newark, East Orange, West Orange, and Irvington. Their mission: to deliver meat packages and other supplies directly to people who need them.
This mission was one of numerous food distribution events operated by Embrace Relief as part of our successful International Hunger Relief: Qurbani 2022 campaign. In total, Embrace Relief delivered food to nearly 100,000 people in a dozen countries in July, including more than 5,200 families in the United States alone.
Hunger can be found everywhere, and as an organization dedicated to ending hunger, Embrace Relief operates in a wide variety of locations around the world. In the U.S. alone, Embrace Relief distributed meat packages to people in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Texas this month. To provide aid to as many communities as possible, Embrace Relief is constantly seeking partnerships with trusted local officials and organizations, who are best positioned to identify where the need is greatest in their communities.
“Partnerships are very important for us,” said Osman Dulgeroglu, CEO of Embrace Relief. “We are able to reach out and connect with donors, and to get products that people need. And our partners have their own network of people in need. When we work together, this is how we’re able to provide support in different places all over the world.”
Partner organizations like the New Spring Foundation are one of the three legs of Embrace Relief’s “dynamic triangle” approach to humanitarian aid, alongside donors and volunteers. New Spring is a North Jersey-based nonprofit organization providing support to incarcerated individuals as they prepare to re-enter society, as well as to families of incarcerated individuals.
New Spring regularly engages with more than 250 families in the region at any given time, offering many different activities including education, mentoring and recreation. Partnering with Embrace Relief on food distribution is a win-win for both organizations: it supports New Spring’s mission and helps Embrace Relief reach people it might otherwise not be able to access.
“Embrace Relief has been really helpful for us,” says Cihan Unsal, president of the New Spring Foundation. “Many of the people we serve are really in need, and they’re sometimes difficult to reach. They receive help from the government, but not enough. And Embrace Relief is happy to reach those needy people through us, to share their food packages. It’s a good collaboration for that reason. Embrace Relief and New Spring have different roles but we serve the same purpose.”
As one of the three legs of the “dynamic triangle,” New Spring and other fellow Embrace Relief partner organizations are vital in providing the on-the-ground logistical support to deliver aid in dozens of countries and hundreds of communities locally and internationally every single year.
Of course, this would not be possible without Embrace Relief’s donors, the second leg of the triangle. Their generosity – their urge to help others and make the world better – during the Qurbani 2022 campaign provided the funding for Embrace Relief to purchase the meat of nearly 400 cows, which would be distributed to 97,000 people in a dozen countries.
And finally, the third leg of the triangle is made up of volunteers, the selfless people who give their time and energy to do much of the hands-on work that turns our donors’ generosity into tangible aid. These are the people giving up their weekend to pack boxes of food, driving the mobile market bus, calling families to coordinate deliveries, and going door-to-door to make sure the meat packages reach the people who need it.
Together, all three legs of the triangle support each other. In turn, we are all able to improve the quality of life for thousands of people around the world at once.
