The charitable delivery arm of DoorDash announced it had delivered an estimated 6.5 million meals in 2020. Known as Project DASH, the program gets meals to places like food pantries and prepared meals to vulnerable people. It also delivers school supplies, home essentials and holiday goodies.
The initiative is funded in part by the company and supported by charitable organizations like United Way Worldwide. That funding pays DoorDash drivers, informally known as dashers, as if they were making a normal delivery.
Through 2020, as many of the most vulnerable people were hit the hardest by COVID-19, the project delivered a total of 6.5 million meals. It was a banner year for the project that started in 2018. In all, Project DASH has delivered more than 9 million meals and has made deliveries in more than 800 cities across the U.S. and Canada.
In just the last 60 days, the project has been active in 37 states and completed more than 450,000 deliveries of groceries, meals and other supplies.
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said it’s become a critical piece of the pandemic relief work in the city.
“As we distribute millions of meals weekly to pandemic-stricken families in San Jose, the most challenging part of the solution lies in the ‘last mile’ of delivery,” said Liccardo. “Local nonprofits have relied on Project DASH to overcome that challenge, and I’m grateful for DoorDash’s innovative initiative connecting aid to our neighbors in need.”
According to the company, there are more big projects in store for 2021.
“We are building long-term solutions that offer logistics services to all government and nonprofit partners in all communities for the distribution of a variety of needs,” read a DoorDash press release.
One of the largest projects is a partnership with United Way to deliver 2 million meals over the next two years. It’s a continuation of an existing partnership that delivered more than 100,000 meals between May and October of 2020.
