Harvesting Hope

Actress Maggie Baird, mother to singer-songwriters Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell, channels her nurturing nature into feeding more people with plant-based foods through her organization, Support+Feed.

by Lily Moayeri

photographs by Zoe Sher

“How exciting is food right now?!” exclaims Maggie Baird.

Mother to award-winning superstars Billie Eilish and Finneas, Baird has just returned from a week in Asia as part of Eilish’s core team. In Tokyo, Baird tried three vegetables she’d never heard of. “There are so many fruits, vegetables, and grains we’re being allowed to discover because we’re embracing new things,” Baird, the founder and president of the plant-based food and sustainability nonprofit, Support+Feed, tells The Rooted Journal. “I like people to think not about what they might be taking away, but what they are getting. The idea that we have cashew cheese and coconut yogurt, that’s not deprivation. That’s really exciting.”

Baird’s enthusiasm is a huge driver for Support+Feed, which she started in 2020 in response to the closure of many plant-based restaurants and the escalating need for food — particularly healthy food — amid pandemic-related shortages. “Coming off a lifetime of loving to feed people and being involved in environmental action, I’ve always been very outspoken,” says Baird, speaking from her family home in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, where she and her husband raised Eilish and Finneas.

In a way, Baird has been training for her position as the head of the nonprofit for over two decades. Her offspring — staunch vegans who are environmentally proactive — are Baird’s first successful conversions. As Finneas said in a speech at a Support+Feed fundraiser in the fall of 2023, “[We] made a bunch of music in our bedroom. We paid off our mom’s mortgage, and she turned around and started a nonprofit immediately.”

Maggie Baird, Founder of Support+Feed.

Four years since its inception, Support+Feed’s mission has grown to encourage plant-based food consumption and climate-change mitigation through food delivery, education, and empowerment.

Despite having just a dozen team members spread across the U.S. (and one staffer in Europe), Support+Feed has a global presence, operating in 41 cities internationally. The organization is made up of coordinators who serve as ground leaders for the cities in which they are based. Support+Feed also relies on its more than 150 volunteers who take care of the physical aspects of the organization such as deliveries. They are stationed in key North American cities, including Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Atlanta, Nashville, Chicago, and Detroit. The nonprofit has delivered hundreds of thousands of high-quality, plant-based meals through its partnerships with over 130 restaurants and community organizations that serve food-insecure and food-inequity groups in their areas. “A restaurant meal is our door opener,” says Baird.

Support+Feed purchases only plant-based meals, but not all of them come from exclusively plant-based restaurants — although they encourage restaurants to offer more meatless options. However, not every community organization Support+Feed works with has had a positive attitude toward plant-based meals. “We’ve had organizations we worked with that in the beginning only wanted the plant-based donuts we offered. But they have come around,” Baird says. “It’s important for the community organization to have a stake and to value the meals and the education surrounding them.”

That education can be as simple as a sticker on the meal package that indicates it is plant-based and therefore good for the consumer and the planet. For many individuals, it is the first time they are having a wholly plant-based meal and Support+Feed wants to make them aware of that fact. Although, Baird says, “there are times when I think it’s important to give people plant-based food and not have them know because they’re so prejudiced against it.”

“On a larger scale, we’re trying to affect culture, making plant-based food more accessible with increased acceptance and demand, and influencing other organizations to also take these things into account. Our mission is the intersectional vision of it,” Baird says.

Support+Feed also delivers donated food products and ingredients whose shelf life is approaching, as well as produce through nonprofits such as The Farmlink Project. “We’re throwing away so much fresh produce and so much other food, it’s insane that we have any food insecurity in our country,” says Baird.

Along with ingredients, Support+Feed supplies recipes to ensure the produce doesn’t go to waste. “When you’re dealing with produce and products, one thing you have to be aware of is if something is unfamiliar to someone, they won’t take it, or they take it and they won’t use it,” Baird says. “We try to provide recipes and guides and help people sample. I’ve heard from many people in the farmer/produce world that recipes are desperately needed to make sure produce doesn’t go away.” Support+Feed also performs in-person and virtual cooking demonstrations with its community organization partners.

Support+Feed’s work is supported by donations, which it accepts on its website on both a one-time and monthly basis. “We’re not an organization that’s ‘40 meals for $1,’” says Baird. “We say your dollar goes farther because you are feeding someone,” she adds. “You are helping the planet. You are helping human health. You are providing information, education, and you’re supporting a small business.”

Support+Feed volunteer brunch team in 2023.

Through her work with Support+Feed, Baird says she has become better informed about the connection between climate change and food equity. Baird notes that the link between the two is particularly noticeable in urban areas, where there are neighborhoods with fewer grocery stores, less green spaces, and limits on how many bags can be taken onto public transportation; in contrast, there are more fast-food establishments with unhealthy food available at lower prices.

“An inequitable food system leads to terrible health outcomes. The same communities are more hit by the climate crisis. The temperature can be two degrees hotter,” Baird says, speaking from her personal experience delivering meals with Support+Feed. “Literally, as you drive from one area to another, you feel the temperature rise because of the lack of trees and more concrete.” Baird is quick to point out, though, that food inequity can be just as serious of an issue in rural areas where residents are surrounded by farmland, which is largely occupied by factory or industrial farms.

Baird is finding that plant-based eating is still largely met with apprehension, and, in some cases, even anger. Support+Feed takes full advantage of its access at Eilish’s concerts where the organization has played a short video explaining the effects of food consumption and climate change before the show, and conducted plant-based food drives. The nonprofit has also hosted these drives at Paramore, Coldplay, and Dave Matthews Band concerts. Support+Feed has had a presence at Blink-182 and Metallica shows as well, where they’ve encouraged attendees to take the organization’s pledge to eat at least one fully plant-based meal a day for 30 days.

“If 700 to 1,000 people in an arena take that pledge, that’s 7 million gallons of water saved,” says Baird, adding that she’s also involved in conversations about how to minimize the environmental impact of Eilish’s tours. “It’s part of our entire strategy,” she says, noting that she and Eilish’s team consider everything from merch to travel and always ask, “What’s the more sustainable version of what we’re doing?”

Maggie Baird distributing plant-based meals at Sisters of Watts’ ‘Winter Wonderland’ event in Los Angeles.

Support+Feed has taken the next step in its mission to combat the climate crisis with Overheated, a summit geared toward Eilish’s fans, as well as the broader music industry. Named after Eilish’s song, the summit features panels and workshops focused on conversations about plant-based diets, sustainable fashion, and practical solutions to the climate crisis, to name just a few topics. The summit also serves as a storytelling platform for activists around the globe. For example, Support+Feed has a 37-minute “Overheated” documentary that brings the experience to interested viewers everywhere. So far, there have been two Overheated summits — the first was held in conjunction with Eilish’s concerts at the O2 Arena in London in 2022, and the second took place at the roller-skating rink, Flippers Roller Boogie Palace, in the UK’s capital city in 2023 — and Support+Feed is planning future events.

“We realized people were not making the connection between food equity, climate change, human health, small business, economy, support, and local communities,” says Baird, speaking of Support+Feed’s mission. To tackle this issue, the nonprofit makes maximum use of its large digital platform to provide information and education about the health benefits of a plant-based diet and connect the dots between food choices and climate change. In addition to using social media to reach a broad audience — on Instagram, the organization has over 95,000 followers at the time of writing — Support+Feed takes a hands-on approach to make an impact. For example, during Eilish’s six-date run in London at the O2, the high-profile venue went all-vegan, a significant change in practices promoted and encouraged by Support+Feed.

“On a larger scale, we’re trying to affect culture, making plant-based food more accessible with increased acceptance and demand, and influencing other organizations to also take these things into account. Our mission is the intersectional vision of it,” Baird says.

She adds: “When we feed people, when we support the community, that is a major win for us every day.”

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