Marco and Monica Gonzales combat childhood hunger with peanut butter drive

May 24, 2020 5:18 PM

Alyssa Charlston,

Posted: May 24, 2020 5:18 PM

Updated: May 24, 2020 6:42 PM

by Alyssa Charlston

SEATTLE, Wash. — With the Major League Baseball season on hold, it was clear to Seattle Mariners pitcher Marco Gonzales and his wife, Monica what they should focus on.

“Childhood hunger is is obviously an extreme issue that the entire country suffers from, the entire world and it’s something that as much as we could, we want to do our best to make sure that it doesn’t become worse because of the COVID-19 crisis,” says Monica Gonzales.

(To donate, follow link at the bottom of this article)

Marco added, “We wanted to actually put our hands to work and do what we could with our time. We ended up knocking out like 5 hundred sandwiches by the end of it.”

Marco and Monica Gonzales were hungry to help after finding out how much the coronavirus pandemic was impacting families and their access to food, so they paired up with Northwest Harvest, the state’s leading hunger relief agency.

Monica: “Now, because of the COVID pandemic, there’s families that are now struggling for the first time ever due to the huge increase in unemployment.”

They started the food drive fundraiser in Seattle, but the two Gonzaga grads wanted to make sure the peanut butter and jelly could spread just as smooth to the east side.

Marco: “All the Gonzaga community that’s in Spokane, people can be assured that this is helping out across the state, so when we decided to partner with Northwest Harvest, that was a huge bonus for us.

Why peanut butter? And why is their goal to raise $40,000?

Monica: “It is high in protein, it is a great energy source, it’s desirable for kids, it’s low in sugar, it’s one of the few shelf-stable idea that is available for purchase right now. On top of that, Northwest Harvest is able to get peanut butter at a really low cost so a little bit of money could create a lot of sandwiches, a lot of meals.”

Marco: “Essentially, for every dollar, you can multiply that by 10 and that’s how many sandwiches we can make out of that. So, our goal of 40 thousand basically equates to 400 thousand sandwiches, which represents how many kids are food-insecure across our state right now.”

That number is increasing daily, so they’re taking the ‘athlete mentality’ and aiming as high as they can.

Marco: “It gives us something to really look forward to, I think something to compete in in these times where we’re missing a little competition, so for us to have a goal in mind and it’s a lofty goal, I think that’s really great to drive us forward to.”

If you’d like to donate to to Gonzales Family Peanut Butter drive, you can do so at this link:

https://marinerscare.givingfuel.com/gonzales-family-peanut-butter-drive

The drive officially ends after May 31st.

A $10.00 donation will help pay for 7 jars of peanut butter. Those 7 jars will allow Northwest Harvest to make 100 peanut butter sandwiches, feeding 100 kids in need. Help us reach our goal of $40,000 to provide relief to the 400,000 children across our state.