Fast Food and Grocery Gift Cards Needed for Homeless Youth

More than 13,500 identified homeless students were enrolled in the Clark County School District during the 2023-2024 school year, according to Title I HOPE. Along with not having a stable place to call home, these youth lack some of the most critical resources, including food. To ensure youth experiencing homelessness have access to hot meals 24/7, the nonprofit Nevada Partnership for Homelessness Youth (NPHY) is hosting its annual Plastic Food Drive from Mar. 1-31, 2025, where the public can donate food and grocery store gift cards that NPHY will provide to hungry children, teens, and young adults.

“Youth experiencing homelessness don’t have access to food, home-cooked-meals or even a microwave,” said Arash Ghafoori, NPHY chief executive officer. “With the support and donations of caring people in our community, we can ensure vulnerable youth don’t go hungry by providing them with an easy and accessible way to eat a hot meal with fast food restaurant and grocery store gift cards.”

There are several ways the community can participate. They can donate $10 fast food restaurant or $25-$50 grocery gift cards, make a monetary contribution, or host a gift card drive with family, friends, coworkers or organizations. Gift cards can be purchased through the Amazon Wish List or dropped off at the NPHY Drop-In Center, located at 4981 Shirley St. near UNLV, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monetary donations can also be made by going to https://donorbox.org/nphyplasticfooddrive25.

The gift cards are distributed to youth experiencing homelessness through NPHY’s various programs, including their emergency shelters, housing programs, Drop-In Center, and weekly outreach events. For more information about the Plastic Food Drive, visit www.nphy.org/campaigns/ or email events@nphy.org.

About Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth

NPHY is the most comprehensive service provider for youth experiencing homelessness in Southern Nevada. Since 2001, NPHY’s best-practice programs have helped thousands of homeless youth graduate from high school, enroll in college, embark on careers, find their passions, build supportive social networks, transition to safe and stable housing, and realize brighter futures. Strengthening and complementing its high-quality direct services, NPHY is dedicated to advocating with and for Nevada’s most vulnerable youth and serves as a leader in efforts to eliminate homelessness throughout the state. In 2017, NPHY founded The Movement to End Youth Homelessness, which hosts the annual Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit and drives NPHY's legislative work, community coordination, system-level efforts and our mission to end youth homelessness for each youth we encounter and our community as a whole. For more information or to support our life-changing work for youth experiencing homelessness, please visit www.nphy.org.

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