Impossible Foods Partners with Colin Kaepernick’s Social-Justice Program to Fight Food Insecurity

Today, Oakland-based startup Impossible Foods kicked off its partnership with social-justice program Know Your Rights Camp, founded by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Impossible Foods donated its plant-based meat to food truck Al Pastor Papi which distributed meals today at the Cornerstone Missionary Baptist Church in the Bayview District. The Marin Food Bank will distribute additional Impossible Foods’ meals to communities in need. Impossible Foods will also donate to Know Your Rights Camp’s events in Los Angeles and New York City, among other regions. 

Kaepernick gained global recognition for kneeling during the 2016 NFL season in a peaceful protest against systemic racism and police brutality. Kaepernick subsequently founded Know Your Rights Camp with the mission of empowering Black and Brown communities through education, self-empowerment, mass-mobilization, and leadership. “Gaining access to healthy and affordable food should not be a challenge for residents of any community,” Patricia Robinson, Director of Community Outreach at Know Your Rights Camp, said. “Know Your Rights Camp is committed to participating in changing the outcomes and disparities that currently exist for families, while we further grow awareness and acknowledge that maintaining good health and nutrition should not be selective for some, but should be experienced by all.“

In addition to Know Your Rights Camp, Impossible Foods plans to extend donations to other organizations fighting for social justice. “Impossible Foods’ mission is to reverse the clock on climate change, restore biodiversity, and expand natural ecosystems—results that will literally transform the way earth looks from space,” Impossible Foods’ CEO Patrick O. Brown, MD said. “At the same time, as an essential business in an unprecedented challenging time, we also exist to serve the most basic and immediate needs of our community—including the food insecurity crisis and social-justice struggles in our hometown region of the San Francisco Bay Area and communities throughout America.”

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Impossible Foods has donated enough plant-based meat and raised charitable funds to feed 750,000 people and aims to reach at least one million people by the end of the year.