Colin Chu
2023 Eco-Hero
3rd PLACE
Colin Chu
Age 15
Palo Alto, California, USA
Homeless Heroes
As a 2023 International Young Eco-Hero Award winner, Colin Chu from Palo Alto, California, stood out for his system-breaking work in mitigating food waste and insecurity.
When Colin realized that his own school discards more than 100 meals a day, while 1 in 4 people in nearby San Francisco are food insecure, he was moved to action. Colin founded Homeless Heroes, a non-profit organization that seeks to simultaneously address environmental justice and social justice by mitigating food waste in local schools and food insecurity among the unhoused.
To achieve his goals, Colin reached out to schools, homeless shelters, and food banks in the Bay Area. He proudly reports that Homeless Heroes has delivered thousands of meals that would have gone to waste. He is gratified to see the effect on the people who benefit from receiving high-quality, nutritious food: “I’ll never forget being greeted with cheers by the homeless shelter when I delivered extra milk pints, as the shelter had not served any dairy that month!”
While the primary goal is to decrease food waste and food injustice, Colin is also educating the community about homelessness by publishing interviews he conducts with homeless people and capturing their life stories on film. He has received grants from the Joey Kovacevich Social Innovation Fellowship, San Mateo County’s Office of Sustainability, and The Experiment Digital to fund the equipment required for deliveries and interviews, with additional support from major partnering organizations including LifeMoves and The Epicurean Group.
“Colin is pursuing this project for the right reasons. He genuinely cares and believes in his mission,” says Nuntiya Smith, an advisor at The Davidson Young Scholar Ambassador Program who has been a mentor to Colin. “Homeless Heroes has become a model social impact project, providing inspiration for other students to take action.”
