We were lucky to catch up with Zachary Yabut recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Zachary thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

Project Pantree was started as a small project and product of the Ali Leadership Institute in Jersey City, New Jersey. At the time, I was just 17 and was invested in creating an organization that would not just serve as a beacon to lower the high food insecurity rates in Hudson County, but to empower youth to get involved in local nonprofits. When researching the severity of these issues, it was alarming that 74,000 individuals in the county were living in food-insecure homes. As the son of immigrants from the Philippines, I understood the situation that many of my neighbors faced, so I knew we had to take action.

The initial idea was to build small pantries, similar to a pop-up little library. For about a week or two, we were set on this idea. We researched areas in Hudson County that we felt would most benefit from this pantry and began contacting local officials and leaders to see if we could make this idea become a reality. In the meantime, we began brainstorming different ideas for an organization name, what our logo and website would look like, etc. Different names were shouted out, but none of them resonated with us until we got to Project Pantree. While very straightforward, the name had just felt right. It was a project of 3 high school students who wanted to build pantries in Hudson County, but instead of pantry, we decided on spelling the word as Pantree, as our slogan is “Supporting Life at its Root.”

Once we had decided on all of the backend logistics of the pantry, we launched our Instagram and website, projectpantree.org, which, to our surprise, had grown rather quickly, gaining the attention of our peers and local organizations. In terms of bringing our idea to physical life, I connected with Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’dea, who has played a vital role in the success of this pantry, to link us with the Hudson County Parks. We had decided on putting our pantry in an existing building in Lincoln Park in Jersey City, but the Commissioner had offered a space a couple of hundred yards away in an empty portion of a building that looked to be the perfect spot for our pantry.

With a location now secured and our idea emerging much bigger than we had imagined, we had to tackle how to stock the pantry for our first opening. Since our organization was youth-led, I wanted to ensure that we were able to engage our youth in the process of giving back to the community as much as possible. Thanks to the Youth Foundation of Jersey City, we were able to utilize a donation bin that was sitting unused in a local bank, and rebranded it so that Project Pantree would be able to collect donations from students and staff at my Alma Mater, County Prep High School.

With that, we were all set. We had originally set an opening date for November, but because of some logistical issues, we had to set a new date, but this time we were up against time, as the weather was rapidly getting colder. Deciding whether or not we should open in December was a tough call, but we had opened with high hopes. On opening day, friends and family shuffled into our organization’s new home with donations of nonperishable foods and hygiene products. Since then, our monthly openings have served a great amount of our local community, and have led to key partnerships with organizations including the Youth Foundation of Jersey City and MaskBloc JC.

An idea of a few high school students had come to life with the support of many individuals dedicated to creating a space that would engage youth and target such an important issue in Hudson County. With a team now led by Schantal Carrasco and high school students across Jersey City, I’m so proud of what this organization has become.

Zachary, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Zachary Yabut, a native of Jersey City, New Jersey, and son of immigrants from the Philippines. I’m an incoming Sophomore at Cornell, studying Hospitality in Business with a Concentration in Finance and look to minor in Political Science. I gained my interest in this field from my experiences in high school, where I dedicated hundreds of hours to the Youth Foundation of Jersey City, where I was exposed to the variety of needs our youth face. I was also privileged to work with Hudson County officials as the student board member on the Hudson County Schools of Technology Board of Education. These together had inspired me to start my own organization with the support of local officials and organizations. The creation of Project Pantree is by far my most fond achievement, as I don’t just get to give back to those in need of food and hygiene products, but I get to see my team of high school students develop into future leaders. I think that is what sets us apart from other nonprofits. We were created by high school students and will continue to be led by high school students, because an experience like this is something I feel all youth must engage in. It provides such a fulfilling feeling to give back and to know that you are doing something that benefits your community.

Any advice for managing a team?

Managing a team can be difficult at times, but when you have a team that is passionate in what they do it makes it all worth it. Leading a nonprofit with teenagers that are eager to be involved is definitely helpful in delegating tasks. We each find something we’re interested in doing and complete the tasks as required. An example of this would be our social media coordinator who specializes in taking photos and creating content and our pantry coordinator who works with other organizations to receive donations. We all provide a niche skill set to the pantry, but offer our takes when we work as a team, which is what makes our team so effective.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

At Project Pantree I work closely with Schantal Carrasco and Norma Sarofiem who are recent graduates of County Prep High School. Schantal works as our Assistant Director, and I knew I was confident in her ability to lead this pantry with me, seeing her work as an Audio/Visual Technology major at County Prep. She not only created videos, but was also directing, filming, writing scripts, she quite literally did it all, all while staying involved in her community. I was so impressed that I had initially asked her to work on the organization’s instagram, because to be quite honest, it was lacking before she had added her expertise to it. A couple of weeks in, our instagram engagement had grown exponentially, and I knew Schantal would be able to assist in leading the pantry as a whole.

Norma, was a Junior Board member at the Youth Foundation of Jersey City, who had applied to join our team, and Schantal and I were both impressed with her involvement in Jersey City, and knew that the three of us would be able to grow the pantry beyond what it had already accomplished.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://projectpantree.org
• Instagram: projectpantree, zachyabut
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachary-yabut-845174281/

Image Credits

Mateo Cole