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Gary Oppenheimer, a World Food Prize nominee, CNN Hero, lecturer and speaker (including a TED presentation and a Google Tech Talk), 2013 Purpose Prize Fellow, receiver of the Points of Light Tribute award for AmpleHarvest.org, Huffington Post’s “Greatest Person of the Day” and “2011 Game Changer”, winner of the Russell Berrie Foundation’s “Making A Difference” award, winner of the Glynwood 2011 “Wave of the Future” award, winner of the 2012 Elfenworks “In Harmony With Hope” award, Echoing Green semifinalist and founder of AmpleHarvest.org now makes his home in the mountains of northern New Jersey after having lived on a boat on the Hudson River in Manhattan since 1978. He is also a Master Gardener, Rutgers Environmental Steward, former community garden director, Environmental Commissioner in northern New Jersey, an avid gardener and long distance cyclist. Aware of the increasing hunger problem in America and, in 2009, after seeing the amount of wasted food in the community garden as well as other gardens around the country, he created AmpleHarvest.org – a nationwide effort to enable America’s 42 million home gardeners who grow food to be able to easily find a local food pantry eager for their excess garden bounty. Named CNN Hero a year later, he was introduced on the Larry King Live show which was followed by a live interview on CNN. Gary also does keynote speaking about hunger and AmpleHarvest.org, individuals making a difference in their community as well as a variety of environmental topics.