Will Pitner
Entrepreneurs often solve problems close to home. When Will Pitner was asked to pitch a business idea as part of his final year at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, he saw the leftover food that was being thrown out on campus every day and decided to save it. Food to People was born, a program that freezes unused food and delivers it to local homeless shelters and churches.
Pitner, 25, is a one-man operation that loads coolers of food from five distribution centers into a Chrysler minivan and delivers them to six or seven pickup locations in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. A Rochester native who now lives in Hopkins and attends Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in St. Paul, Pitner said his faith drives him.
Local Catholics can support Food to People by eating, observing and socializing at free meals hosted by the organization on Saturday, September 28th from 5-7pm at Ascension in Minneapolis, Thursday, October 10th from 5:30-6:30pm at All Saints in Lakeville and Thursday, October 17th from 5:30-6:30pm at Guardian Angels in Oakdale.
Q) How does your faith inspire you to help others?
A) My parents really emphasized human dignity and that everyone has a story about how they got there. The least we can do is love them and genuinely care about them. They were really good at emphasizing how that ties into Catholic social teaching.
My mother was a school librarian. She was always volunteering and was a voice for many people, especially women. She had that gift of a caring mother who said, “I can make it through anything.” I could see the love in her eyes and suddenly I felt better.
Q) As a student working part-time, you saw a lot of food being wasted on campus, which led you to research the issue.
A) It’s been on my mind. I learned that at least 30 percent of food meant for humans is wasted and sent to landfills. This prompted me to ask questions of chefs and kitchen staff and I discovered that it’s not their fault. It’s the nature of their business model and the fear of running out of food.
Q) You solved that problem by freezing unused food and delivering it to local churches and shelters. What have you learned from founding Food to People?
A) Patience. We all have great plans in our heads and we want to make them happen right now. Every six months a light shines through, God opens my eyes and I laugh. It’s like a checkpoint. “Oh, if only I had everything the way I wanted it to be six months ago, everything would have been messed up.” In hindsight, you can see God’s threads pulling you to where you need to be.
During my senior year of college, when we were trying to launch Food to People, I was shopping for DoorDash, selling plasma, and doing all sorts of things to pay my rent.
That experience taught me humility and that God’s love is not directly proportional to the amount of material things I possess. At one point in my life, I was obsessed with the prosperity gospel. I would hear speakers say that God would give me something if I believed enough. I learned that I should first ask what God’s will is and go from there.
Q) Are there any mistakes you fixed?
A) Yes, it is in the sense that it is open to everyone. We are not inviting a certain type of person to the table. Rather, we are inviting everyone. I learned that the hard way when I first worked with Guardian Angels. We said, “This is for food insecure people.” No one came.
We have learned to say, “It doesn’t matter what your background is. This is for everyone, because everyone is spiritually hungry.” How do we create encounters where people know they are seen, known and loved? This food is a tool to create that.
Q) Do being a Christian and being an entrepreneur have anything in common?
A) It takes childlike faith to take risks, and I think the greatest entrepreneurs are those who serve many. That’s the Christ way. He didn’t come to be served, he came to serve.
Q) Now that you have a successful business, are you less afraid to take risks?
A) Absolutely. I have become bolder. I can trust God more.
Q) What advice would you give to someone with a big dream or project in mind?
A) At some point you have to take action with conviction. We live in a culture that confuses judgment with action. There’s the same dopamine hit when you tell people you’re going to write a book as there is when you actually write the book. It’s much easier said than done.
My wonderful mentor, Bill Lenci, the archdiocese’s COO, recommended a book called “The Goal” by Eliyahu Goldratt, which really helped shape my thinking about how to work effectively.
Q) How do you spend your time while driving and delivering food?
A) I’m an avid rosary prayer. I pray the rosary once a day. And I love the Peace Prayer by St. Francis. I listen to podcasts with Bishop Robert Barron and the Word on Fire Institute, and Jimmy Akin from Catholic Answers called Jimmy’s Mystical World, where he talks about all things earthly. “Does the Bible say anything about whether aliens exist?”
When things get tough, my go-to songs are songs about cars and highways like “Life Is a Highway” (by Tom Cochran), “On the Road Again” by Willie Nelson, and “American Ride” by Toby Keith. I like to make it a game of seeing how many songs I can play that relate to each other.
Q) Do you need some humor along the way?
A) Don’t take yourself too seriously. You fail a lot more than you succeed as an entrepreneur. God knows we will fail, that’s why we have confessions. You can’t go through life hoping you won’t fail.
Q) You’re so busy! How do you manage to juggle it all?
A) I try to be disciplined. Thankfully, I’m not a big fan of social media. My vice is YouTube, because I can justify the next video: “Oh, I’m learning something, I’m being productive.”
I joined Exodus 90 with five friends starting on January 1st, which helped me break bad habits and realize how much time I actually have in a day.
Q) What else have you cut besides YouTube?
A) In Exodus 90, you have to take a cold shower, so you want to get that done as quickly as possible. In Exodus 90, there are no unnecessary expenses, so I find myself justifying it as, “I need to buy something, I need to run to Target right now,” and then I’m like, “Actually, I don’t need that.”
Q) What does it look like to be a lifelong learner?
A) You continue to learn how much you don’t know. It keeps you humble and hopeful. “Wow! There are people who have dedicated their lives to learning this stuff and I didn’t even know they existed.”
I read Matthew McConaughey’s book, Green Light, which was based on something he wrote when he was younger, and I thought, “Wow, that would be amazing to go back and read what was going on in his mind when he was 25 and trying to figure out who he was and be successful. I want to do that!”
So I started writing in my old compound spiral notebook. I’m writing for my grandchildren. When I’m 75 and my grandchild asks me, “What were you thinking when you were 25?” I can show them these things I’m writing for 50 years from now.
Q) What do we know for sure?
A) If there’s one thing I know, it’s that I know nothing. Every time I think I know something, it gets ripped out from under me.
Who you associate with matters. You have values, but you have to be flexible and responsive to God in whatever comes your way. Have a list of non-negotiable values and be flexible in responding to the calls God gives you.
