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Thanksgiving is a day for giving and that’s what production company, By Any Means will be doing. Founder of By Any Means, Aristotle, teams up with Hood Chef and former Bravo reality culinary star, Chef Roble to do their second annual “By Any Meals: A 5 Borough Food Drive.” Last year they fed about 100 hungry New Yorkers during the harsh Sandy holiday and gained huge awareness. Not like other major companies, By Any Means is a small company that is giving back on the way up, not on the way down.

The 2013 goal is to help feed at least 500 people food for Thanksgiving. They will be working with Indiegogo’s platform for the funding of this event. We recently spoke with Aristotle, Chef Roble and Hood Chef to discuss the goals they want to reach and how far they will take By Any Meals.

If you would like to help or just give a donation you can go to By Any Meals here.

Giant: Will you take your goal bigger than just the NYC boroughs? Will you got to other major cities in the near future?

Aristotle: The ultimate goal is to feed more people, beyond NYC. If people need a warm meal on Thanksgiving, we want to be there.

G: Which areas this year you will be serving your food?

A: Within the boroughs, we like to go to the places that the bigger charities won’t. The hood, really touch the people. Last year was special because after Sandy, we hit the areas no one cared about. I never want to lose that approach.

G: How does it make you feel seeing so many people needing food in one of the biggest city in the world?

A: It was an eye opener, the biggest lesson I learned from last year was, hungry doesn’t necessarily mean homeless.

Hood Chef: After seeing how many people were without a hot plate of food last Thanksgiving, I was motivated to keep feeding people in need even after the Holidays.

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G: Has any of your artist family reached out to help with this great event?

A: It’s been surreal how many of my peers, family and friends have offered their time or money to help us reach our goal.

HC: A lot of friends reached out wanting to help, I feel like we got the whole city on our side.

Chef Roble: I’ve had culinary artists, fashion models, musicians and several others reach out and offer up help for this great cause.

G: Do you have any other projects besides your youth program and food drive that you’re trying to help with the inner city communities?

A: My 10 year plan with By Any Means is to open a community center/creative workspace. A place where kids can come during the day and learn from the people who are professional creatives and get that real experience and insight. It’s bigger than me and the By Any Means team, bigger than music videos or clothing, we want to show people helping is cool and easy to do when you come together with like-minded people.
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G: What is the chef cooking up for this Thanksgiving?
HC: Roble and I will prepare a six course meal. It’s a Thanksgiving dinner with our special swag.
CR: We will be cooking up classic Thanksgiving comfort food. Things like Turkey of course. Mac & cheese, stuffing, candied yams, collard greens etc. The usual suspects prepared with a lot of love.
G: What were the biggest hurdles of this year?

A: The biggest hurdle has been raising the monies needed in order to execute the full five-borough drive. At this moment we’re about half way there with $10k and only have a few days remaining. So if you’re reading this and want to help, even if it’s just a $1, go to www.byanymeals.co and click that donate button and be apart of history.

November 14, 2013  
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