Pedro Garcia found his calling behind the wheel of a truck.
Back in 2009, he was spending 10 hours a day on the road delivering meals to children across Dallas as a driver with Food for Good. But he quickly realized he wasn’t just dropping off food — he was a lifeline in his community. “You see how grateful the kids are,” Pedro says. “These are children who might go to bed without eating. We’re changing that.”
As one of the first hires at Food for Good, the PepsiCo Foundation’s platform for making food more accessible, Pedro has been serving meals to underserved families for 15 years. Food for Good began as a grassroots project bridging the summer gap for Dallas-area children who rely on school meal programs for daily nutrition. Today, with help from people like Pedro, it has delivered more than 75 million meals across the United States, reaching over 150,000 children in 2023 alone.
A former school bus driver, Pedro initially thought this would be a seasonal job. He signed on full-time once he recognized how much the work meant to people in the community he’s called home for 40 years. “There is hunger here that you don’t think happens in the United States,” says Pedro, who lives in Dallas with his wife and three sons. “But when you get out and meet your neighbors, you see it. That motivated me to keep doing this.”
These are children who might go to bed without eating. We’re changing that.
Over the past 15 years, Pedro estimates he has driven more than 1 million miles to deliver meals — sometimes as many as 4,000 in a single day — across Texas and Arkansas. But calling him simply a delivery driver doesn’t capture the significance of his role.
“Pedro is a leader in every way,” says Sheena Allen, Regional Manager for Food for Good. “He has so much knowledge that he’s our go-to guy for everything from customer service to warehouse operations. He even mans the grill at company celebrations.” Sheena says Pedro has become something of a local celebrity, too. “I get calls every day asking whether ‘Mr. Pedro’ will be the one making the delivery,” she says. “The kids really love him.”
Pedro knows his work is special, and that’s what gets him behind the wheel every morning. “This is the type of job that, once you start, you never want to call out sick,” he says. “A lot of these families have gone through hard times. Some don’t have much. So to make their day just a little easier, you really feel like you’re doing something positive.”
Food for Good supports the PepsiCo Foundation’s broader goal to help address food insecurity through collaboration in the communities where PepsiCo employees live, work and serve. Learn more about Food for Good’s programs, commitments and partners at pepsicofoodforgood.com.