About Us

Established in 2003 by Pam Koner, our Founder and Executive Director, Family-to-Family is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit national hunger, literacy and poverty-relief organization dedicated to providing food, personal hygiene products, books and other basic life necessities to American families struggling with the challenges of poverty.

Our Mission

Our mission is to ease the burden of hunger and poverty by facilitating one-to-one connections between families with ‘enough to share’ and impoverished American families with profoundly less. Connecting donors with specific families in need through a constellation of family-friendly, hands-on giving programs, Family-to-Family provides individuals, employees, families and children from all economic walks of life with concrete ways to “share their bounty” that actively encourage empathy and compassion.  Giving opportunities include sponsoring a family with monthly groceries, providing a book-hungry child with a book each month, making birthday boxes and more.

By connecting each donor family with a specific recipient family for both our Sponsor A Family hunger relief program and our One Book At A Time literacy program, we bring large and seemingly intractable problems into personal focus, making proactive, attainable results possible one family and one child at a time.

The families we help are living at or below the poverty line in communities with high levels of unemployment, significant percentages of residents without high school degrees, and low per capita incomes.

Where We Help – Our Footprint is National

During the first few years of operation, Family-to-Family focused its efforts on rural communities where a large percentage of families with children lived below the poverty level, and where there wasn’t reliable access to social service assistance. These communities were underserved by schools, private social service organizations and government aid programs, and often lacked connections with informal helping networks like women’s and church groups.  Some lacked even the most basic infrastructure such as a supermarket, pharmacy, or bank.

In 2007 Family-to-Family expanded its model to include impoverished urban communities where many working poor were increasingly unable to meet their basic nutritional needs, and where, at the same time, food pantries were turning families away as the economy worsened and a greater demand for food was put on them.

In addition to our core family sponsorship program,   F-to-F has created a constellation of additional giving opportunities, all designed to provide kids, families and adults with meaningful, hands-on giving experiences.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.”-Margaret Mead

Courtesy Chang W. Lee —The New York Times

“We are a retired couple who would very much like to help any family who needs help. We have been the recipient of help in our lifetime together and will consider it an honor.”

—Pat and Gene

Orting, Washington