Keyword Sponsor Donor Program

Since inception in 2002, we have successfully collected and distributed over 500,000 pounds of non-perishable food donations to local food pantries and impoverished communities across the United States, through our collaborations with musicians such as String Cheese Incident, STS9, Dave Matthews Band, Jack Johnson, Phil Lesh and many others. In addition, we successfully built a much needed food storage and distribution facility on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The unit is used to store and distribute emergency food supplies to more than 100 families at the end of each month when bills are due and emergency food is critical in making it to the next month.

The Conscious Alliance began as one young, college student’s vision and drive to help others. It all started when Justin Baker, founder and executive director of The Conscious Alliance, mobilized a group of friends and fellow students to come together as food drive volunteers. Baker’s vision led him to host campus-wide food drives with the hopes of not only collecting and distributing food to impoverished Indian Reservations in the Western United States, but also to raise awareness around the fact that poverty that still exists on American Indian Reservations today.

The vision didn’t stop there. From campus to concerts, Justin Baker quickly discovered that it would greatly benefit the cause to appeal to a larger audience. Music concerts were just the venue he needed to capture a larger audience in one place at one time. Concerts proved to be a success. There were greater food and fundraising opportunities given the welcomed support of generous concertgoers.

Today, The Conscious Alliance VISION is bigger than ever. We hope to continue to inspire high school and college students to become more actively involved in their communities by participating in and hosting food drives for people in need. Using food drives as our medium, we hope to encourage leadership and inspire community participation by young people across the country. In the meantime we have harnessed the momentum behind our cause to expand into disaster relief efforts.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, we were able to respond within days, calling upon our network of supporters and musicians to come together to raise aid. Though generous donations and a series of food drives with Dave Matthews Band we were able to personally deliver over 30,000 pounds of food and almost $100,000 that was used to purchase more food. We have realized our potential to get food to those most in need, and will continue with this area of relief when disaster strikes.

It is our goal to collect and distribute one million pounds of food to America’s hungry both in cities and on impoverished American Indian Reservations. Once we reach that goal, we hope to collect and distribute one million pounds of food per year every year thereafter. We are confident we can reach our goal!