The Man Behind the Mission

Ron Calandra knows what it feels like to have nothing. Before he founded Hearts for the Homeless, he lived out of the back of a Ryder truck for a time. That's not a metaphor. That was his reality. And rather than leave it behind when his circumstances changed, he let it become the foundation of everything he built.

From 1988 to 1990, Ron served as a missionary in Mexico, raising awareness about extreme poverty and organizing programs to support some of the country's hardest hit communities. When he came home to Buffalo, he couldn't look away from what was happening in his own neighborhood. On Christmas Eve 1990, Hearts for the Homeless began at the offices of New Covenant Tabernacle Church, with a motor home and a mission to feed the poor and homeless on the streets of Western New York.

A Campus Built on Commitment

Today the Hearts ministry campus spans two buildings at 870 and 890 Tonawanda Street in Buffalo's Riverside neighborhood. Walk through and you'll find pieces of the organization's history alongside everything it does today. The campus is home to the Hearts Harvest Food Pantry, which serves the Riverside community every Tuesday from noon to 4 PM and every Friday from 10 AM to 2 PM. It's also home to the Hearts Clothing Closet and Discount Clothing Store, which opened in its current form on January 13, 2026, offering clothing resources to individuals and families in need as well as discount shopping open to the public with everything always 50% off the tagged price.

At 870 Tonawanda Street sits the Hearts Redemption Center, open Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 10 AM to 3 PM. Bring your returnable cans and bottles, get 5 cents each, and Hearts keeps 3.5 cents per returnable to fund its outreach programs. If you donate your returnables entirely, Hearts receives 8.5 cents per item. The campus also houses a Commercial Kitchen that completed a $200,000 renovation in October 2024, funded entirely through community support.

The Soup Kitchen That Never Takes a Night Off

If there's one thing that defines Hearts for the Homeless it's consistency. The Hearts Mobile Soup Kitchen has been rolling out five nights a week, fifty-two weeks a year, since the early 1990s. Five separate volunteer crew teams go out Tuesday through Saturday evenings, meeting at the Hearts Campus and traveling by shuttle bus to the Buffalo and Erie County Library downtown to serve the homeless and poor waiting in line. Hot meals in winter, sandwiches and drinks year-round. Nobody gets turned away. Ever.

A Tuesday lunch service also runs at the Leroy R. Coles Jr. Branch Library on East Delavan in Buffalo, a partnership that started after the library branch manager reached out because her community sees the library as a place to seek help and Hearts showed up to answer that call.

In 2025, Hearts served 86,526 homeless and people in need across all its programs. In February 2026 alone, Hearts Harvest Food Pantry served 12,690 meals to 1,410 individuals, including 388 children and 192 seniors. Those aren't abstract numbers. That's someone's neighbor. Someone's family. Someone who just needed a hand and found one.

Recycling Clothes, Restoring Lives

Hearts' motto is Recycling Clothes, Restoring Lives, and it's more than a tagline. The thrift store operation is what Nick Calandra, Hearts' President and CEO, calls the organization's social enterprise. Every dollar generated through the stores goes directly back into funding the outreach programs, and the expansion is fully funded through this model, not through donor gifts. That means every time someone finds a great deal on a winter coat or a set of dishes at a Hearts Thrift Store, they're directly funding the soup kitchen that goes out that same night.

The first Hearts Thrift Store opened on Genesee Street in May 1996, followed quickly by a second on Main Street in October of that year. By 1999 Hearts had merged everything into one store at the Riverside campus. Then in December 2023 came a major expansion with the opening of a location at 2217 Sheridan Drive in Tonawanda, right near Anderson's on a bustling stretch of Sheridan Drive. The ribbon cutting on December 13, 2023 brought out the Kenmore Town of Tonawanda Chamber of Commerce and Town Supervisor Joseph Emminger. On March 1, 2025, a second location opened at 3531 Seneca Street in the Seneca Ridge Plaza in West Seneca, designed with ADA-compliant fitting rooms, accessible bathrooms, and a double seat fire truck themed shopping cart for families with young kids.

Niagara Falls: A New County, A New Chapter

On April 11, 2026, Hearts opened its third thrift store at 1595 Military Road in Niagara Falls in the Wegmans plaza. It's their first location ever in Niagara County, and the timing was no accident. Just the previous summer, Hearts had begun serving families in Niagara County through its Food Pantry Express program. Less than a year later, a thrift store followed.

During one of the store's first days open, a woman named Dee and her son stopped in and started browsing. Her son picked up a teapot priced at $6.99. Dee, who volunteers at her church's food pantry, stopped him and explained what that purchase actually meant. At Hearts it costs just $2.45 to provide a meal through the Commercial Kitchen. That $6.99 teapot could feed nearly three people. A simple purchase connected to a much greater purpose. That story, shared in Hearts' April 2026 newsletter, is the whole mission in one moment.

How You Can Help

Shopping at any of the three Hearts Thrift Stores is one of the most direct ways to support the mission. The stores are at 2217 Sheridan Drive in Tonawanda near Anderson's, 3531 Seneca Street in the Seneca Ridge Plaza in West Seneca, and 1595 Military Road in the Niagara Falls Wegmans plaza. The Tonawanda and West Seneca locations are open Monday through Saturday 9 AM to 8 PM.

Over 500 red donation bins are spread across Western New York for clothing donations. The Hearts Redemption Center at 870 Tonawanda Street accepts returnable cans and bottles Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday from 10 AM to 3 PM. And if you want to give your time, Hearts has volunteer opportunities across every program, from the food pantry to the mobile soup kitchen crews that go out five nights a week. Find out more at heartsforthehomeless.org.

A Story Still Being Written

Thirty-five years in, Hearts for the Homeless is still growing. Three thrift stores. A mobile soup kitchen that never takes a night off. A food pantry serving hundreds of families every week. A clothing closet. A redemption center. A renovated commercial kitchen. A Food Pantry Express reaching communities across Western New York. And a founder whose own experience of hardship became the reason he never stopped showing up for his neighbors.

Nick Calandra, who leads Hearts today as President and CEO, described it this way on the organization's website: it is truly amazing to see all God has done and is doing through Hearts. From a motor home on Christmas Eve 1990 to 86,526 people served in a single year, that about says it all.