First on Fox – best-selling author and life strategist, speaking exclusively to Fox News Digital Tony Robbins is announcing Tuesday that it and its partners have pledged to “provide an impressive 30 billion meals to fight global hunger” in just two years of the program’s existence in the 100 Billion Meals Challenge.
The announcement comes on Giving Tuesday — significant because Robbins has promised to match most incoming donations, whether they’re from individuals or groups.
“If on Tuesday, someone wants to donate up to $2 million, I’ll match it,” Robbins said. “So if you want to participate, you have to double the amount of impact.”
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Robbins made his debut. Anti-Hunger Initiative With the goal of providing 100 billion meals in 10 years – and the program is now moving ahead of plans – he said, along with former World Food Program chief David Beasley.
Robbins reveals in some detail his personal connection to the problem of hunger in America and around the world. (See the video at the top of this article.)
“I grew up in a very difficult environment. We had no money,” said Robbins, who today lives in Florida with his wife, Sage, and their children.
“I had four different fathers, and they’re all good men, but they all lost their jobs in different places. And when I was 11, I had a Thanksgiving with no money and no food in the house. We had . Saltine crackers and peanut butter. But, you know, it was Thanksgiving.”
She said her parents were also arguing at the time – “yelling at each other or blaming each other. And I have a younger brother and sister, five and seven years younger, and I’m trying to make sure they don’t listen,” Robbins said, describing his life as a child.
“We had saltine crackers and peanut butter. But, you know, it was Thanksgiving.”
And then, he said, “there’s a knock at the door.”
And “long story short, this guy has two big bags of groceries, and he has a pan with a cooked frozen turkey on the ground. [beside him]. He said, is your father here? And I was like, ‘Just a moment.’
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Robbins said the stranger was serving his family an amazing Thanksgiving meal just out of the kindness of his heart — and as a guy with very little family, he said he felt “so excited,” Robbins said. said
“I thought, ‘This is going to be the most magical thing.'”
However, his father “did not respond positively” to the offer at the door.
“He looked at the man and said, ‘We don’t accept charity.’
An uncomfortable exchange ensued as her father tried to close the door — and finally came the moment “I’ll never forget,” Robbins said.
“The man said, ‘Sir, please Don’t hurt your family. Because of his ego.’
“My dad turned bright red,” Robbins said. “I remember. [seeing] veins on the side of his neck. I thought, ‘He’s going to punch the guy in the face.’ But he just shrugged his shoulders. He took the food and kept it.”
“I believed that strangers took care of me and my family. And then I wanted to take care of strangers.”
“And I was excited. Up until that moment, I didn’t understand what was going on with him,” Robbins said. [my father]But he did not take care of his family. And he left our family a few days later. It was one of the hardest moments of my life – but it was also the best moment because there was food.”
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From this experience as a boy, he said, “I developed a different faith. Me and my family. And then I wanted to take care of strangers.”
And so, Robbins said, he “set a goal that when I was older, when I was 17, I would feed at least two families — and the next year I fed four and then eight.”
Once he was in business and able to help others on a larger scale, “We got to 50 and 100 — and then 100,000. Then we finally got it to 2 million through my foundation and through my wife and me. Reached 2 million people.
“When you’ve suffered so much, you don’t want anyone else to suffer,” Robbins said of his initiative and his motivation to help others. (Fox News Digital)
From there, over time, he dramatically increased his numbers and expanded his relationship with partners in the effort.
With Beasley, formerly of the World Food Program, “we put this project together. And the National Pasta Association, International Pasta, Feed My Strong Children, Mana Nutrition, the Government of Dubai — they’re all participating.” And Global Citizen. Giving us a platform to reach more people, it’s amazing what we can do.”
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He said that no child should die of hunger anywhere in the world.
And the same goes for “here in America,” Robbins emphasized. “I’m feeding another billion in America. We’re the richest country in the world, and yet we have about 40 million people, many of them children and the elderly, which are still unsafe for food. This is insane. We need to do our part.”
According to Robbins and his team, global hunger has increased sharply in recent years — up to 730 million people suffering from acute hunger since the pandemic.
Additionally, about 30 million people are “on the brink of famine.”
“I feel like I had to face it so that others wouldn’t do it otherwise.”
Robbins told Fox News Digital, “I think if I wasn’t hungry, if I wasn’t hurting, I don’t think I would work as hard. But when you’ve suffered so much, you don’t want to. And When I go to different parts of the world, including countries where people are food insecure, I see that they don’t have food.
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Robbins noted, “I always say there are two types of motivation in life. When you’re trying to do something yourself, motivation is there. By the grace of God Or the grace of the universe, whatever you believe, that you are meant to be. And I think I endured that way so others wouldn’t.”
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He said that’s why “it’s not hard to continue your passion, especially when you see the joy in people’s eyes when that food is brought to them. Because it’s more than food. For me, it’s People don’t care anymore, and I think we can all play that role.”
“Together, we can do anything,” Robbins told Fox News Digital. (Carlo Allegri for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Robbins notes the health benefits of giving to others.
“There are all kinds of studies to show. that [helping others] creates Biochemical changes in you. Something as simple as standing in line at Starbucks and paying for the coffee of the next five people—it will create a major chemical change in your body that usually lasts longer than getting something for yourself. It’s pretty wild.”
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“As humans, the reason we survive is because of our connection to community,” he said.