A Columbus-based nonprofit that Sam Larsen launched as a high school sophomore’s community-service project in 2023 has grown into a statewide operation, distributing free groceries across Ohio and reporting nearly 54,000 people fed so far, according to reporting by The Columbus Dispatch.
The group is called GROB, short for Groceries By and For Ohioans. It was born after Larsen saw YouTube videos made by Jimmy Darts, a Minnesota YouTuber who gives people money at grocery stores and films paying it forward, the Dispatch reported. Larsen saved from summer jobs, bought food himself and began surprising shoppers before the effort turned into a structured nonprofit. “We’d go up to people and ask them, ‘Hey, can we pay for your groceries?'” Larsen told The Columbus Dispatch.
Founder Sam Larsen, now 20, serves as the nonprofit’s president, the Dispatch reported. His father, Andy Larsen, a Nationwide Children’s Hospital physician, serves as a director and handles donor and grant outreach, and partner Jeff Martin, a former volunteer, serves as vice president. Each weekly grocery-store outing costs about $3,000 to $5,000, according to the Dispatch’s reporting.
GROB now operates on several fronts at once. In addition to the weekly store outings, the nonprofit runs drive-through food distributions, delivers groceries to families’ doors and gives away $50 Kroger e-gift cards to people who register on its website, grobcolumbus.org, the Dispatch reported. Larsen told The Columbus Dispatch plans are underway to open a completely free grocery store in Columbus, stocked with the kinds of name-brand items he argues other free pantries too often lack.
Much of the operating money has come from Larsen’s GoFundMe, which has raised nearly $93,000 of a $100,000 goal, according to The Columbus Dispatch. Additional support has come through Kroger’s Community Rewards program and grants from the Columbus Youth Philanthropy Council and the Janssen Foundation, the Dispatch reported.
The people GROB serves include families living paycheck to paycheck, people with disabilities, families who have lost a parent, people facing eviction and people sleeping in their cars, Larsen told The Columbus Dispatch. “We’re supporting people who are struggling,” Larsen told the Dispatch. “And we’re meeting them exactly where they are.” The last line of every GROB shirt sums up the mission, according to the Dispatch: “Be a blessing to someone today.”
For this week’s distribution, GROB was giving away about $50 in groceries daily to people who follow the organization on Instagram, according to The Columbus Dispatch. Ohioans who want help, or who want to volunteer or donate, can register and find the nonprofit’s programs at grobcolumbus.org.