In the fall of 2002, The New York Times ran a series of articles on poverty in the U.S. One article (Sept. 9, 2002) described the town of Pembroke, Illinois, a community so poor many families lived in rusted out mobile homes or dilapidated houses, had only propane for heat, and considered running water a luxury. Pam Koner, a New York mom, entrepreneur and Marvin Koner’s daughter, read that article and felt compelled to help. 

Ms. Koner contacted an outreach worker in Pembroke with the simple idea of linking families with “more” from her own community to Pembroke families with profoundly less, asking each donor family to provide their “new family” with a week’s worth of groceries the last week of every month. With a list of 17 of the neediest Pembroke families, she convinced 16 friends and neighbors to join her, and they each began sending monthly boxes of food (and letters) to their new Pembroke families. Seventeen families in need quickly grew to 60, and Ms. Koner began expanding to include families in other impoverished towns in other states. Sixty families became 200, and eventually 1,000. Targeted sponsorships to help struggling veterans, refugees, and Holocaust survivors were added, and today, Family-to-Family works in 33 communities connecting over 2,700 recipient and donor families. Groceries are no longer shipped; instead, Family-to-Family coordinates local food purchases for each sponsored family through community partners, like schools and Boys & Girls clubs, but donors still send packages of “extras” and letters to the family they’re helping.  

All profits from the Marvin Koner Archive’s fine art print sales are donated to Family-to-Family, enabling it to continue its work linking families with “more” to families with “less” to help the most vulnerable among us.