Google and Facebook’s algorithms have nothing on the ones running in the mind of Hunger at Home Executive Director Ewell Sterner, who every day manages to keep a delicate balance between venues with surplus food and the agencies who feed Silicon Valley’s hungry.
“If you’re the executive director of CityTeam, you feed 400 individuals every day, breakfast and lunch, so you know what your need is,” Sterner says, calculating hunger in his head. “Bill Wilson Center has no commercial kitchen and feeds 25 children lunch only, three days a week. So then we know if Santa Clara Convention Center says they have 40 box lunches, that would automatically go to Bill Wilson.
“Levi’s Stadium is typically between a ton and 3 tons of product,” he continues. “So I have CityTeam, Martha’s Kitchen and Salvation Army all lined up with their trucks ready to go.”
It’s a Herculean task, and Sterner tries to do it without wasting a single bite. Inspired by charity work he performed with his son, Casidy , Sterner originally founded Hunger at Home when he was working for Hilton in the San Diego area. In 2014, though, he was hired by Team San Jose to manage the convention center and immediately knew the program would have to follow him.
