Becca Heller

At this year’s Pack to Give Back event, the Maryland Food Bank invited individual supporters and local businesses to help pack holiday meals for 23,400 food-insecure families. Over the course of the next few weeks, these meals will change hands and travel from our warehouse to network partners before reaching their final destination: our clients. In the series Following the Food, the food bank will document this journey and all of the individuals who make it possible.

Social engagement. Social responsibility. These terms have become major buzzwords of the 21st century—they’re even “trendy,” if you will. Businesses publicly pursue the concept; high schools work it into senior projects; and individuals champion it on social media. But before our society gets too comfortable with this term, we need to determine: what exactly does it mean to be socially engaged?