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Santa Cruzan Danny Keith and his Bold Mission to Combat Hunger

Some would say he’s “very Santa Cruz.” But he’s also very cool and boy, is he eager to get kids to know about hunger — and how they can combat it.

Meet Danny Keith, a Northern California guy hungry to make a change.

Keith, who lives and breathes the surf and skate culture in Santa Cruz, California, has been at the helm of Santa Cruz Skate and Surf Shop since the early ’90s. In fact, he’s created a wildly inventive setting in his fascinating little lair. A pool table, some video games and a TV lounge compete with the other eye candy in the shop — all that skate and surf paraphernalia. Think of it as post-modern after-school club for today’s youth.

But beyond that arena, Keith’s been happily riding another successful wave. It’s a philanthropic one dubbed Grind Out Hunger, which the 40-year-old launched back in 2004 after teaming with Santa Cruz’s Second Harvest Food Bank. The idea was to speak to kids at local schools and “encourage youth in helping peers” with the issue of hunger.

How Keith arrived at that point is interesting to chronicle. After receiving several food barrels from Second Harvest, he noticed that the barrels weren’t being filled up.

“We came to realize that moms weren’t traveling around with five pounds of food they can donate when their kids wanted to buy a skateboard,” Keith tells me. “Typically there would be 20 to 30 kids hanging out, playing pool, playing video games [in the shop] — they’re not walking around with cans of food in their pocket. So, I thought, if I can’t get them to bring in the food, then I’ll bring it to them.”

In a stellar move, Keith decided to hit local elementary, middle and high schools during their traditional holiday food drives. An easy thing to do would have been to simply drop off some food barrels, but Keith went one step further. He decided to actually talk to the students himself. And so, in a series of spirited discussions during assemblies, he began educating students about the importance of thwarting hunger in Santa Cruz County.

“I also wanted to create incentives for schools to raise the most pounds per student,” Keith adds. “I wanted to reward that [winning] school with a gift certificate, which they could give to winning students however they saw fit.”

In the beginning, the idea sparked the interests of smaller niches — the AP Club, the school band and the like.

“Only about five percent of the school was involved and I saw that there needed to be a wide-spread peer pressure effect,” Keith says. So he tossed in a prize of $600. Instantly, student interest surpassed just the AP club, to include the entire school.

Over the course of five years, Keith’s motivational work with students and their posses has lured in hundreds of thousands of pounds of food. Last year’s total: 100,000 pounds, more than double the amount at the beginning of the mission.

But you’d really have to witness the Keith’s amazing vigor in person to know just how infectious his personality is. His look is modern skate-surf. He appears carefree in sneakers but is insanely focused, creative and passionate about giving back — his shoulder-length brown hair, for instance, is about to be chopped off for Locks of Love, which provides real-hair wigs for those suffering from cancer. He now boasts more than 20 speaking engagements a year at local schools. Last year, he nabbed the Generation Next Award from Second Harvest.

Asked why he’s so passionate about combating hunger, Keith sighs deeply and says that it has a great deal to with kids and the elderly.

“They are the two groups of people that really can’t really make a change happen [in regards to not having food],” he says. “I think there is a misnomer of who gets fed by food banks. A lot of people think it’s mainly going to homeless shelters and people not pulling their weight, and that’s not really the case. Second Harvest services forty-thousand-plus people a month. Half of those are kids!

“And it’s not like going to Safeway Foods where you can pick out the food you want,” he adds. “You go there and you are handed a bag. It’s a very humbling experience. For me, I never went hungry growing up, but we were strapped as a family. Both my parents were injured and there were times when we’d eat a lot of hot dogs and beans — whatever, we were still eating, but I thoroughly believe that if we fed people and educated them, we’d have a better society and spend less money incarcerating people and trying to rehabilitate them.”

Keith is a Salinas native who fell in love with surfing at an early age. He relocated to Santa Cruz in his late teens, now has three children, 18, 16 and an 18-month old. He believes in “paying it forward” because “you never know where you are going to be.”

Up next for this hunger fighter: An inventive re-teaming with Second Harvest on “packaging” the model he uses when speaking to kids, which would allow other food banks to utilize his program through media kits and DVDs. He also sees the importance of being a social networking titan.

Other than his ties at Santa Cruz Skate and Surf, he oversees other enterprises, such as skateboards.com, surfboards.com and snowboards.com. He’s also a morning on-air personality (6 to 11 a.m.) on KDON’s rambunctious “Morning Madhouse” — you can often spot the man at a bevy of local events the station covers, too.

All this exposure, Keith notes, only helps him get the word out about hunger issues in the 831.
“There’s no reason anybody in this country should go hungry — period!”

Learn more about Danny Keith and Grind Out Hunger at www.grindouthunger.org. Visit Santa Cruz Skate and Surf Shop at www.facebook.com/santacruzskateandsurf. Watch live skateboards.com shows at noon, Friday at www.justin.tv/skateboards.

Watch the video (below) of the First Annual Nexties, of which Keith was a recipient, at a recent awards ceremony sponsored by local giant Santa Cruz Next.

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Kids…are POWERFUL!!!!

I am overcome with emotion while writing this blog…Grind Out Hunger set a goal of 100,000lbs for the 2009-2010 Kids Helping Kids Holiday Food Drive…Bly Morales, Lisa Allyn and myself planned speaking engagements, distributed DVD’s, spoke at dozens of schools across Santa Cruz County, built a holiday window downtown, muscled a 41st Ave Safeway food drive, landed the cover for the Thanksgiving edition of the Santa Cruz Sentinel, 102.5 KDON was the leading media sponsor, Santa Cruz Junior Derby Girls raised food, birthday party food drives were going down, Grind Out Hunger Skateboards were selling like hotcakes, 831 magazine did a cover story on Grind Out Hunger….I could go on and on with the exposure and support for Grind Out Hunger in 2009. But when it comes right down to it, THE KIDS ARE THE ONES WHO PULLED THROUGH AND MADE THIS HAPPEN and I am proud to say for the 2009-2010 Grind Out Hunger Campaign together we raised 116,853 pounds not only smashing the goal of 100,000 pounds but almost doubling 2008-2009′s 60,000 pounds….never underestimate the YOUTH!

Below are the winners of the 2009-2010 Grind Out Hunger food drive, congratulations to all! I am so humbled at the support and love that Grind Out Hunger has received….we will see you at the March 10th awards dinner.

A 'Grind Out Hunger' skate deck from Santa Cruz Skate and Surf Shop on 41st Avenue can help out the needy while at the same time giving the teen in your life a treasured present (Shmuel Thaler/Sentinel)

Empire Academy winning high school $600 prize and 3-Pete raising 8530lbs

Aptos Jr. High middle school winner $300 prize raised 7800lbs

Gateway Elementary School $300 prize

Special thanks to: Bly Morales, Willy McRea, Lisa Allyn, Sheree Storm, Kate Chabrek, Jimbo Phillips(provided art for skateboard deck and campaign),  Sam Segovia, Showbiz, The Morning Madhouse, 102.5 KDON, Greg Archer, The Good Times, SoWat TV, The Santa Cruz Sentinel, KION 46, 831 Magazine, Ryan Zen Lama, All the schools that had us out to talk, Safeway on 41st Ave, Santa Cruz Skate and Surf Shop, Zane Keith, Cole Kerby, Mia Morales, Omar Morales, Xavier Morales, Mark Conley, Romain Fonsegrives, Shmuel Thaler, Santa Cruz Innovation and Design, Maya Delano, Lars Maptstead, Paul Gallagher, Surf Club at Berkley, people that donated money though Facebook,  volunteers that helped out anytime we asked, The Santa Cruz County Boy Scouts, Brian Russ, Classic Cleaners, Coats For Kids, Dusty Nelson (DVD master!), iSpot Compassion,  Second Harvest Food Bank and of course my wife Taniya and family for  supporting me with everything needed to make all of these things happen….

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart!!!!

2010-2011 here we come…

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Ring…..ring…RD: “Hello”…..Greg Archer: “Hello DK, I have an opportunity for Grind Out Hunger and for you to be interviewed on So Wat TV”…RD:”Awesome, when can we do this?”…Greg Archer: “Can you be downtown in 15 minutes?”…RD:”Sure”. And so it goes, when that phone call went down it was 7:45pm and I had just gotten home. I quickly showered up and flew to downtown Santa Cruz, where local Community TV has its station. I literally walked in and within 5 minutes we were live on air. Now this is a small show, community right? I must have gotten dozens of texts/emails and tweets about how people saw me on So Wat TV. Most of the show was dedicated to Grind Out Hunger, how it started, why we are around, what we do and how to get involved. Hosts Jeff Dinnel and Chip (the man with 3 first names?) were more than cordial and I was able to make my statements for Grind Out Hunger, thanks again to Greg Archer for the hook up and So Wat TV for accommodating our cause!