MEAT-ups
Our refrigerated truck brings fresh, USDA-inspected meat to local food pantries on each pantry’s own distribution day, and families take it home that same day. No freezer needed. In 2025: 3 families received fresh meat or protein.
What is on your plate?
United Plates of America
A volunteer-led 501(c)(3) public charity helping neighbors in eastern Washington and North Idaho, starting with fresh meat for families at local food pantries, with the long-term goal of reaching the whole nation.
Our mission
United Plates of America is a volunteer-led nonprofit serving eastern Washington and North Idaho, starting in Spokane and Kootenai counties. Our mission is to bring fresh, quality meat to working families who struggle to afford it, and to help our neighbors live healthier, more secure lives through four programs: MEAT-ups, Essential Needs Assistance, Housing for Neighbors in Need and Hear the World. Our long-term goal is to reach families across the whole nation. What’s on your plate? We’re here to help with it.
Today we work in Spokane and Kootenai counties. In 2025, MEAT-ups gave fresh meat or protein to 3 families, and Hear the World helped 3 people with hearing loss get hearing devices.
What we do
Four programs for our neighbors in eastern Washington and North Idaho.
Essential Needs Assistance
Help with urgent costs our neighbors can’t cover on their own and that fall outside other programs. Not yet helping people; growing as funds allow.
Housing for Neighbors in Need
Help for neighbors who are homeless or housing-insecure, starting with housing costs such as rent, and planning toward building housing. Not yet helping people; growing as funds allow.
Hear the World
Help getting quality, professionally fitted hearing devices for people who can’t afford them. In 2025: 3 people with hearing loss got hearing devices.
Need help?
Sign up for future opportunities to get help and we’ll be in touch about the help we can offer. Requests are reviewed case by case, and we can’t guarantee assistance. If you need help now, these services are available:
If you need help right now
- Emergency: call 911.
- Mental-health crisis: call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline).
- Local help with food, housing, utilities and other needs: call 211. In Washington, call 1-877-211-9274.
Our impact
2025: 3 families received fresh meat or protein through MEAT-ups, and 3 people with hearing loss got hearing devices through Hear the World.
The need we’re working toward
250+ food banks and 60,000+ local pantries and meal programs make up Feeding America’s network alone.1
Roughly 4 to 6 in 10 pantries in recent regional surveys say they need more refrigerator or freezer space.2
Our long-term goal is to work with every food bank in the United States, bringing them the opportunity, logistics, and ability to provide American families in need with fresh, quality protein (chicken, pork, and beef) for the communities they serve.
The problem: no place to keep it cold. American families ask for meat more than almost anything else. In Minnesota’s statewide survey, 89.7% of pantry clients said they want meat at every visit, but only 67.5% said it’s always available.3 Fresh meat has to stay at 40°F or colder, and many pantries simply don’t have the refrigerators or freezers to hold it. One regional food bank serving Colorado and Wyoming reported turning away thousands of pounds of fresh food a year for lack of cold storage.4
Our answer: the MEAT-up. A refrigerated truck arrives at a participating food pantry on the pantry’s own distribution day with fresh, USDA-inspected meat. Families take it home the same day, straight from the truck, so the pantry never needs a freezer to store it. We bring the protein and the logistics; the pantry brings the community.
How we’ll get there: region by region. We’re starting in Spokane and Kootenai counties, then plan to grow across the Northwest and region by region across the country until we’re working with every food bank in the United States. The end goal is one uniform, consistent program at every food bank, so American families get the same fresh protein and the same dependable pickup wherever they live.
A pickup model that has worked at scale. Scheduled refrigerated-truck pickups in parking lots once delivered fresh meat at more than 1,000 locations in 48 states (Zaycon Foods, Fast Company, 2013).5 We’re applying that same approach to food banks.
Where we are today. MEAT-ups and Hear the World began helping people in 2025. We’re raising $1,000,000 to grow all four programs and reach more families.
Help us reach our goal.
Sources: (1) Feeding America, About Us and FY2025 Annual Report. (2) New York State Dept. of Health, 2025 Cold Storage Report; Washington State Dept. of Agriculture, Farm to Food Pantry FY2025 report; Hermsen et al., Journal of Applied Social Science. (3) CDC, Preventing Chronic Disease, 2021. (4) Food Bank of the Rockies. (5) Fast Company, 2013.
Where this started
In December 2009, I stood in a Spokane church parking lot next to a refrigerated truck full of chicken. We sold 850 cases at $1.49 a pound, and families drove up and we loaded it right into their cars. That was the first Zaycon event.
Over the next few years, that one parking lot turned into thousands of pickup events a year, in cities in 48 states, for hundreds of thousands of families. In 2014, we gave every host church a case of meat to pass along to people in need. Later, as CEO of The Savory Butcher, I ran the same drive-up pickups around the Northwest and beyond. We partnered with Ronald McDonald House Charities and Somebody Cares Tampa Bay to get farm-fresh meat to families who needed it most.
Here’s what all those years taught me: good protein is one of the hardest things for a struggling family to afford, and one of the hardest things for a food bank to keep stocked. But a truck, a parking lot and a couple of hours can change a family’s whole month.
United Plates of America is where I’m putting everything I learned. This time it isn’t about selling meat. It’s about the health, wellness and uplifting of people. We’re using the experience and skills we’ve built over the years to help change lives, starting with fresh protein at the food banks and pantries that feed our neighbors, one MEAT-up at a time.
Mike Conrad, President & Executive Director
What the community says
Words from people who worked alongside Mike.
“Mike was a very forward thinking and knowledgeable of the food system. … It was a great experience working with Mike.”
“Mike is the cream of the crop. Absolutely loved my time working for him at Zaycon! He always put his employees and customers first.”
“Mike's knowledge of the industry was superior to anyone I have ever encountered. His integrity is the most impressive thing about Mike.”
“Mike is simply one of the best executives, innovators and human beings I know! … He makes things better ...better for whatever initiative he's involved with and everyone around him better and happier!”