State College Food Bank celebrates community support with the second Great Big Fight to End Hunger Concert
For 45 years, the State College Food Bank has provided nourishing food for county residents experiencing food insecurity, thanks to the generous support of the community. In appreciation, the Food Bank is hosting the second annual Great Big Fight to End Hunger Concert at the State Theatre on Monday, Sept. 14, at 7:30 p.m., featuring the Grammy Award-winning band A Great Big World.
The Band
Band members Ian Axel and Chad King met when they were music business students at New York University. The singer-songwriter duo named their band A Great Big World and performed their uplifting songs, accompanied by Axel’s piano and occasionally other instruments. The band has been featured in pop culture, and one of the band’s noteworthy achievements came when their joyful, upbeat hit “This Is the New Year” was performed by the cast of the TV series “Glee” in 2013.
The band’s breakthrough continued in 2015 when Christina Aguilera and Axel performed a duet of “Say Something,” a song about a troubled romance, with Axel at the piano. The performance won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.
Axel and King recently branched out to write the music and lyrics for “Wonder,” a Broadway musical based on R.J. Palacio’s 2012 children’s book of the same name.
The 2025 and 2026 Concerts
The concept for the State College concert came from Jens Thorsen, co-founder of Valhalla Business Advisors and a dedicated State College Food Bank supporter who has served as the Food Bank’s board president and as a board member. He was listening to the music of A Great Big World and thinking about a book he’d read, “The Happiness Hypothesis,” written by Jonathan Haidt, a professor at New York University. Haidt observed that one of the best ways to become happy is through charity — engaging in helping other people. Another effective way is group experiences like concerts, church, and sporting events.
“The idea of being able to bring their joyful and positive music into State College, with this organization that has meant so much to us and the community, just felt like a natural harmony,” Thorsen says. “It was a fairly chance occurrence where I came across one of the members of the band to talk to them about whether they’d be open to that idea, sort of on the fly, and their feedback was, ‘Sure, we’d consider that.’”
More than 400 people of all ages packed the State Theatre for the first Great Big Fight to End Hunger Concert in 2025, inspiring the band to agree to another concert in September 2026. King will not be able to attend the upcoming concert, so Axel will be joined by guitarist Chris Cubeta, who also serves as a producer and recording and mix engineer for the band, and a cellist.
Thorsen describes their music as bright, hopeful, engaging, honest, and fun. He says that after last year’s concert, “We got really nice feedback about people feeling that sense of elevation, community, and goodwill toward their neighbors.”
The event also raised a modest amount of money for the food bank.
“It [the concert] was really motivated by wanting to spread awareness and bring more people into the fold about the Food Bank,” says Allayn Beck, executive director of the State College Food Bank. “Also to thank our donors. We have an amazing donor family behind us, and we couldn’t do it without them. … So, having those donations is vital to our survival and vital to us being here and doing what we do.”
She also sees the concerts as a way to continue to thank the many people who supported the fundraising campaign for the new building.
Beck says A Great Big World’s music appeals to both children and adults. Everyone in her family, from ages 6 to 44, enjoys listening to the band.
“I do feel like a lot of people came to that concert, not sure what they were going to listen to,” she says. “I feel like every person I spoke to who left that concert just had this feeling of, ‘That’s what I needed.’ … It filled people’s buckets.”
Food Bank Clients
Food insecurity is more widespread in Centre County than many people realize. Beck says, “In 2025, we provided over 6,707 household distributions consisting of over 16,000 people.”
Three anonymous clients shared how the State College Food Bank has benefited them and their families:
“Since becoming a Food Bank client, I have noticed that I have less stress over food and providing nutritious meals for my children,” says client No. 1.
“My wife and I recently became clients of the Food Bank after gaining guardianship of our grandchildren. We were on a fixed income, and feeding two more people was a challenge. The Food Bank helps us get fresh food on the table not only for our grandkids, but for us too,” says client No. 2
The third client says, “After fleeing a violent home situation, I came to this town and was welcomed with open arms and given help from the State College Food Bank. I was feeling really low, and the staff and volunteers helped lift my spirits. I look forward to seeing them every month.”
More than Food
The State College Food Bank provides more than food. It offers essential items such as laundry detergent, shampoo, conditioner, cleaning supplies, diapers, hygienic products, personal care items, and specialties like halal meat. Many of the nonfood items are not covered by SNAP.
Beck says they started a separate period care and incontinence product program a year ago.
“We were just seeing an increased demand for those products and didn’t like the idea of people having to choose between incontinence and period products over laundry detergent or toothpaste. So we have actively sought out grants to kind of supplement that, have more of those products available, and then they’re available to every person in the household in need.”
Eligibility for Service
The State College Food Bank serves any Centre County resident who is food insecure, either directly when a client comes to the facility for food or indirectly through its re-donation program. People don’t have to live in the Centre Region near State College to be eligible for help.
Beck says, “The only qualification is that they have to live in Centre County. We do request that they get a referral. The referral is not a qualifying document to get food. But our logic there is that food is a basic human need, and if you are identifying as food insecure, it’s possible that you have other parts of your life that can use some support. If getting a referral through a case management program, those case managers are then helping with all the other pieces.”
She notes that the most common organizations that give referrals are Centre Helps, the school districts, and Penn State.
“We never want that piece of paper to be a hurdle for someone to get access to food,” she says. “So, we are very flexible and helpful on getting those referrals, and we never turn anyone away if they don’t have them.”
Food Insecurity in Centre County
People with incomes below the federal poverty level and people who are working but don’t earn enough to pay for their basic needs face food
insecurity — missing meals or worrying that they will, due to a lack of funds. The second group of people, who work but live paycheck to paycheck, are classified as ALICE, which stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.
Megan Evans, the executive director of the Centre County United Way, says, “The challenges facing ALICE households remain largely unchanged. Housing, child care, food, transportation, and health care continue to be the primary drivers of financial hardship.”
In 2024, 14% of Centre County households were below the ALICE Threshold, and 30% were ALICE households. This equates to 44% of Centre County households struggling to afford basic needs.
“All of this data comes directly from United Way of Northern New Jersey,” Evans says. “They are also known as United for ALICE.”
Re-donation Program
Beck says the Food Bank is primarily privately funded. “The government support we receive is provided in the form of food rather than direct financial assistance. In 2025, government-provided food accounted for less than 11% of the total food donated to the Food Bank.
“Any time we have extra food or we know that there’s a need, we will step in to support, however we can, any feeding program in the community if there’s a gap somewhere.”
The re-donation program also serves all of Centre County.
A Brighter Future
Thorsen says the vision of the State College Food Bank is one where eventually nobody goes without food in Centre County, and the good news is that it’s not an unattainable goal. “We don’t have the precise roadmap finished, but we think we’ve got a good start to a set of next steps and funding mechanisms where it literally is an actionable plan to get there.”
Concert Tickets and Sponsors
Tickets for the family-friendly concert are available through The State Theatre.
Concert sponsors, as of June 2026, include Valhalla Business Advisors, Centre County Gazette, Central PA Endodontics, Alvin F. de Levie, Mount Nittany Health, Benecon, First Citizens Community Bank, Paul and Joanne Steindorf, Geisinger Health, and Nittany Brokerage. T&G
Karen Dabney is a freelance writer in State College.
