Founders Give was the largest private relief effort in New York City supporting healthcare workers and patients at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Springing to action

When COVID-19 hit New York City in March of 2020, many hospitals decided to shutdown cafeterias to shift resources and contain the spread, leaving doctors and nurses without much to eat. Food brands were eager to help but didn’t know where to start.

Cole Riley was only three months into the launch of his food and beverage e-commerce marketplace Founders Market and was working closely with many independent food brands and their founders across the city. But on March 20, he decided to put everything on hold, pivot his focus and create a pipeline for these brands to get their products into the hands of healthcare staff and patients quickly and efficiently. Within 48 hours, Cole rallied 32 brands, setup a resourceful logistics network and delivered 7,500 products to the city’s hardest hit hospitals. Founders Give was born.

Over the next 10 weeks, the campaign exploded. Founders Give brought on the largest food and beverage brands in the country, expanded logistics operations and partnered with the 8 major NYC hospital systems covering 51 facilities. Over 10 weeks, Founders Give was the largest private relief effort in the city, delivering 2.2 million products to support 100,000+ healthcare staff and patients.

By summer, the need certainly dissipated and city hospitals were slowly returning back to normal. Cole knew it was time to wind down operations and start to look to the future. To take this incredible community of food brands and point them at a much larger, more persistent problem: food insecurity. Now, Cole leads Wellfare, a nonprofit on a mission to make nutritious food accessible for all.