BRIDGEPORT, Pa — Brown University alum Aidan Reilly was recently featured by CNN as one of the news channel’s CNN Heroes of 2022.
Among 30 individuals/groups selected to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Impact List for 2022, Reilly co-founded The Farmlink Project – a program which connects farms with surplus produce to relief organizations delivering millions of healthy meals to families in need. The result: reduced carbon emissions from wasted food. In less than 16 months since its founding amid the pandemic, Farmlink is operating in 48 states and three countries, and it has delivered over 45 million meals. The result: 80 million pounds of carbon emissions. The company has raised over $8.5 million, and partnered with Chipotle, Kroger, and Uber Freight to integrate with their suppliers. For their efforts, the founding duo of James Kanoff and Reilly were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor Service Award in April of this year.
Reilly – who missed his senior season in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic – was at home in Los Angeles shortly after the outbreak occurred. An international relations and comparative politics major, he learned that farmers nationwide were throwing away tons of food because the pandemic had broken down supply chains—and that the Westside Food Bank, where he’d volunteered as a kid, was suddenly struggling to serve 1,300 families instead of the usual 300.
“I wondered if maybe these were two problems that could solve each other,” he noted in an interview with Brown Alumni Magazine. Enlisting help from his friends James Kanoff and men’s water polo teammate Will Collier ’20, he started cold-calling Southern California farms, asking who had extra food, until he found someone who didn’t hang up on him. Next thing he knew, he was driving a rented U-Haul with 12,000 eggs in it to the Santa Monica food bank.
That’s how the Farmlink Project was born. Slightly more than a year later, run by Reilly and staffed by college-age volunteers, it has delivered 30 million pounds of surplus food to food banks and similar centers in 48 states. It’s also raised more than $1 million in direct relief to farmers.
Prior to co-founding Farmlink and the son of a documentary filmmaker, he previously produced two documentaries. One of them, Asma, about an 11-year-old Syrian refugee girl in the Beqaa region of Lebanon, played in several documentary film festivals.
Following graduation from Brown, he continues to work on Farmlink and has transitioned the project from volunteer to professional truck drivers and recently hired paid staff.
To watch the CNN story on Reilly, CLICK HERE.
In addition, he was featured by Ellen Degeneres on her show earlier this year:
