ID Logistics earns recognition for free transport support at CHOP Out Hunger warehouse

Free transportation can be as mission-critical as food itself. On April 27, CHOP Out Hunger renamed its Scranton warehouse CHOP’ID to recognize ID Logistics, whose no-cost transport support is expected to move 24 annual loads of donated food and save the nonprofit about $20,000 a year in delivery value.

The warehouse sits at the center of CHOP Out Hunger’s work with backpack programs, school pantries, pop-up pantries and summer feeding initiatives. A plaque at the site reads, “A partnership between CHOP Out Hunger and ID Logistics,” a small public marker for a relationship that helps keep food moving through a growing anti-hunger network in northeastern Pennsylvania.

That operational role matters because CHOP Out Hunger has scaled quickly. The organization, founded in Bradford County in 2019 by Dani Ruhf after her daughter raised concerns about classmates not eating lunch, expanded into Lackawanna County in 2021 and opened a South Scranton warehouse in 2022. It outgrew that space within months and moved to a larger Scranton warehouse in 2024. By June 2024, WVIA reported the group was serving 45,000 students weekly, while its Bradford County pop-up pantries were reaching about 5,000 people each month.

CHOP Out Hunger says its Weekend Backpack Program, In-School Pantries and Pop-Up Pantries provide essential nutrition to thousands of children each week. The Scranton warehouse serves as the central hub for those efforts, which makes dependable transport more than a convenience. It is part of the operating system.

For workplace readers at A Simple Gesture, that is the real lesson. A Simple Gesture says it rescues edible food from businesses and delivers it to local nonprofits using volunteer drivers in their own clean personal cars, and it describes itself as a near zero-cost program. One affiliated chapter says a $1 donation can turn into more than $30 of food for pantries, and another says the model has spread to more than 70 chapters nationwide. In that kind of setup, routing, timing and vehicle access decide whether recovered food reaches a pantry on time or becomes another handling problem.

The CHOP’ID naming also shows how logistics partnerships can become part of mission culture, not just back-office support. For volunteers, coordinators and staff, the takeaway is straightforward: when a transportation partner adds capacity, the nonprofit can serve more sites, absorb seasonal spikes and keep staff focused on food access instead of freight.