Mark Bucher | Source | Founder at Feed the Fridge

Mark Bucher leveraged his extensive business experience as co-owner of Medium Rare — the iconic, highly-acclaimed D.C. area steak and frites restaurant with locations in Bethesda, Cleveland Park, and Arlington — to solve meal insecurity for thousands of seniors and families in the DMV.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, Bucher realized members of his community were trapped in their homes, often isolated and hungry. Since then, he has made it his mission to make meal security a reality — first for his D.C. metro community, and then across the nation. Bucher created a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called We Care, Inc., through which he launched Feed the Fridge, an initiative to combat hunger while also helping pandemic-battered restaurants stay in business. Bucher places refrigerators at recreation centers, community centers and schools across the region and pays local restaurants to stock them with up to 100 fresh meals per day, raising funds for the operation through donations to his nonprofit and online crowdfunding.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Bucher has provided more than 100,000 free meals to those dealing with food insecurity in the nation’s capital, distributed on weekdays, weekends, and especially during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. His efforts have been profiled by numerous national and regional media outlets including CBS Sunday Morning, The Washington Post, MSNBC, and FOX News. He was awarded the 2021 RAMMY Good Neighbor Award for his dedication to eliminating hunger and working to ensure anyone who needs a meal, gets a meal.