Our Mission
Open Hand has provided love, dignity, and nutrition since 1988. We are one of the largest community-based providers of home-delivered meals and nutrition services in the U.S.
We deliver over 5,000 nourishing meals a day along with nutrition programs and services to individuals with chronic disease, homebound seniors, or those who are simply unable to cook for themselves. We believe food is medicine, so every meal is designed by our team of registered dietitian nutritionists and cooked in our kitchen with quality ingredients by our experienced chefs.
With nearly 75% of Open Hand clients living below the national poverty level and 90% living in underserved communities, we play a critical role in helping to meet their nutritional and medical needs. In fact, one-third of our clients recently reported that, if not for Open Hand, they would have no idea where their next meal would be coming from.
In 2023, Open Hand celebrated a monumental milestone and delivered our 35 millionth meal. As we look ahead, we remain focused on our mission: We Cook. We Deliver. We Teach. We Care.
The Future of Open Hand
Open Hand launched The Healing Power of Food: A Healthy Life Delivered, a $19.5 million capital campaign that will fund Open Hand’s new home adjacent to the Grove Park neighborhood and Westside Park in summer 2024. This campaign is the largest in the organization’s 35-year history, and our relocation to a larger, better-equipped facility will position Open Hand for its next era of service to those who need the organization most.
The new 43,000 square-foot headquarters at 1380 W. Marietta Street features eight loading docks, space for a culinary training workforce development program, a 100% increase in warehouse space, and a 75% increase potential for cold storage. Three new refrigerated vehicles will be added to the fleet of delivery vans, allowing Open Hand to grow delivery from 25,000 meals to 39,000 meals each week.
Ultimately, our new building will allow us to deliver meals locally and ship meals statewide while simultaneously processing incoming deliveries of thousands of pounds of food product to be cooked, packed, and delivered with love – free of charge – to those we serve on a weekly basis.
How You Can Help
Volunteer with us. Grab your friends, family, coworkers, or come solo to help prepare and pack meals in the Open Hand kitchen. You can also show our neighbors that food is love and deliver meals directly to our clients’ doorsteps.
Increase your impact by making a gift, or support us through our social enterprise, Good Measure MealsTM. Good Measure delivers healthy, delicious meals right to your doorstep. Best of all, every 2 meals purchased through Good Measure provides 1 meal, free-of-charge, to an Open Hand client.
Open Hand clients can better manage their own health and prevent the onset of nutrition-related health complications because of the power of food as medicine. We empower clients to eat healthier, live longer and decrease the need for medical attention. Join us in improving the lives of Georgians at OpenHandAtlanta.org.
