Mehran Yazdanian has lived in Philadelphia for 20 years and considers himself a Philadelphian. He first became aware of the grave issue of food insecurity in America in 2015 when he happened to watch a documentary on PBS on this subject.

In 2017, he co-founded a local food bank, Zia, with his neighbor to assist the families of students attending nearby Laura Wheeler Waring Elementary School. Zia has continued helping families encountering food insecurity since then.

Mehran lives blocks away from Community College of Philadelphia (CCP). He was astonished to learn that over half of its students suffer from food insecurity and housing instability. It’s easy to imagine that without sufficient food to eat most students will have trouble learning and lead to increased dropout rates.

He approached CCP to establish the "Yazdanian Fund" in 2019 for the specific goal of helping CCP students with access to food and ultimately success in their pursuit of higher education. The Yazdanian Fund has raised over $30,000 since its inception and is administered by the College’s Single Stop Office, which connects students to a multitude of resources, such as housing, food, transportation, counseling, child care, and urgent financial assistance.