by John Oliver Mason

The Metropolitan AIDS Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance (MANNA) was founded in 1990 by the members of the First Presbyterian Church on 21st and Walnut Street. Volunteers worked out of the church's basement kitchen to provide meals to Philadelphians who were inflicted with HIV and AIDS. Since then, MANNA has moved out of the basement and into their headquarters on 23rd Street, delivering meals and nutritional counseling to children, families, and individuals of all ages, throughout Eastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey.

MANNA's CEO, Richard Keaveney?, is no stranger to Rittenhouse Square. He was President and CEO of Topper?s Salon and Health Spa, which has several locations throughout the area including 19th and Sansom Street. He joined MANNA's board in 1997 and was elected CEO in September of 2005, after turning his Presidential duties at Topper's over to its current CEO, Ken Wyka.

In 2006, MANNA expanded its mission beyond HIV and AIDS ?to include anyone at acute nutritional risk, due to a life-threatening illness. "Once we made that decision," said Keaveney, "we reached a capacity issue." So, MANNA began an extensive fundraising campaign and so far, have raised over three million dollars. "The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, through the support of State Representative Dwight Evans, has given us one million, board members and advisory board members have contributed well over a million and a half, and the rest has come from Corporate, Foundation, and individual donors.?"

"So the decision was made to renovate our existing kitchen and offices, so that we will have the ability . . . to produce not two thousand meals a day, but five thousand meals a day" added Keaveney. MANNA is currently operating five days a week and serves around nine hundred people each day. When they move back into their newly renovated facility, MANNA hopes to serve meals seven days a week to upwards of fifteen hundred people.



For more information about MANNA or how to get involved, check out their website at www.MANNAPA.org or call 215-496-2662