Youth Volunteers Aid Local Community in Face of Recent Challenges

Amid this year’s federal budget cuts to the USDA, soup kitchens and food pantries across New Jersey have struggled to keep up, with less food being supplied to an increasing number of low-income individuals. Luckily, the local community has risen to the occasion and offered its own forms of aid, and one of these groups is IMPACT Youth Club.

IMPACT Youth Club was founded in 2012 by Wendy Wu as a subsidiary of her existing music organization, IMPACT. As a 501(c) nonprofit organization, the club, made up of middle and high-schoolers, has spent the last thirteen years dedicated to aiding the greater New Jersey community through various acts of service. These include musical events, donation drives, environmental clean-ups, and more.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, IMPACT Youth Club continued its services virtually, offering online concerts for senior centers and donating masks to hospitals and local police departments. Their efforts were recognized on NJ News12’s “Jersey Proud” program.

Since 2019, IMPACT Youth Club has amassed 26,000 total hours of community service, all of which have been contributed by its 300 young volunteers from New Jersey, California, Connecticut, and even across the Pacific in Taiwan.

In early August, 20 New Jersey and Taiwan members of IMPACT Youth Club participated in the 2025 IYC service camp. They worked with the Wagner Farm Arboretum’s Giving Gardens program to weed the beds, harvest vegetables, and plant new ones to be donated to various food pantries and soup kitchens across New Jersey.

The group also visited the Table of Hope soup kitchen and community aid organization in Morristown, where the volunteers helped pack 772 backpacks for incoming elementary schoolers and wrap nearly 800 utensils for the kitchen’s daily clientele of around 100.

Both Wagner Farm and the Table of Hope have struggled as a result of the USDA cuts, only just beginning to recover from the blow of the COVID-19 pandemic, when $26 million worth of funding for local food programs was cancelled in March of this year.

While Table of Hope is a private organization, it does rely on food donated to them by local pantries, the majority of which rely on federal funding. With their supply being diminished so substantially in the past few months, the Morris County-based operation says, it will become increasingly difficult to keep up with the town’s demands.

Following its trips to Wagner Farm and Table of Hope, IMPACT Youth Club visited the Jersey City office of Senator Andy Kim on August 5, meeting with a representative to discuss the future of volunteering in the country as well as what is being done to support the state’s food programs. Inspired by the senator’s engagement with food aid facilities and their own volunteer experiences, IYC members decided to share their recent observations and concerns with his office.

The club also drew particular attention to the temporary discontinuation of the Presidential Volunteer Service Award, or PVSA, due to similar cuts to AmeriCorps. It hopes to bring the honor back as soon as possible due to its crucial role in recruiting, recognizing, and awarding significant efforts of community service throughout the nation.

There is still plenty of work to be done in terms of aiding and supporting food programs, and local organizations such as IMPACT Youth Club are determined to continue their services wherever possible, and advocate for the importance and impact of volunteering in the country.