Thanks to his friendship with Bachelorette fave Tyler Cameron, we already know a lot about The Bachelor’s Degree In‘s next lead, Matt James — including his work with ABC Food Tours, a non-profit that he and Tyler have been working for years. The program introduces children from low-income communities to the different types of food and activities for a healthy lifestyle — here’s what you should know about the work they do.
The inspiration for the project came when the two were teammates in football at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. “One of the interesting things of our athletic department did was invite the students community in the campus to eat with the athletes,” Said Matt The people in a 2019 interview. “Winston-Salem has a large wealth divide and a large amount of students with less resources and less recognized, and it was precisely this organic interaction that is not supervised like, ‘Okay, you’re going to meet with Johnny for 30 minutes and go over the task.'”
After college (and sports) years ended, they remained friends, and an encounter with a group of low-income elementary school students in New York, a night inspired them to start a community program. In the ABC’s of Food Tours web site, a page called “Our Story” puts you in the detail:
“Late in the evening when Matt was leaving his favorite Lower East Side restaurant, he found a group of young children clustered on the corner of 6th Street and Avenue C. After being teased of step about how ashen his ankles were, he made a pause and dedicate themselves to the party. He learned that they attended a local primary school and lived in the neighborhood. After sharing a few more laughs, Matt broke up with the young guys with an idea. To reach their primary school, they organised a meeting with the Principal of P. S. 188 – Mrs. Ramos. Ms. Ramos explained that more than 50% of the students in your school were homeless. That along with numerous other difficulties, he gave Matt an idea, ABC Food Tours.
The initial objective was to find a creative way to engage kids in underserved communities. We started taking groups of students to our favorite restaurants in lower Manhattan. As former athletes, we saw the importance of introducing not only physical but mental well-being of the components in our tours. A year later; now the service of all of District 1, which include a fitness component in each tour, and has expansion plans in Brooklyn, in the vicinity of the neighborhoods of Manhattan and select cities across the country.”
The program serves families in the New York metropolitan area of the City, taking the kids on mini-tours to stop in different restaurants, sample the foods that the children may have never tried before, and learn more about healthy eating and cooking. Matt admits that the costs can climb at times, but they never ask for any fees from the participants or their families. Instead, they are funded through donations, fundraising, and their own portfolios.
“We love to eat at these places and we know how difficult it is to stay afloat, so we never ask for anything,” said Matt in 2019. “The most we have to pay for everything, and a lot of it is funded by the donations that people give on our web page, and then independently by Tyler and me. So we’ll put together events, like Tyler had an event at Soul Cycle where people sponsored tours and have to travel with us in one of the studies.”
Matt’s commitment to doing good is just one of the many reasons why fans are so excited to see him take the center of attention as the next Bachelor, when the production is resumed in the (hopefully) near future.
