Joey Hentzler is the Program Manager for MAZON. He leads and implements the organization’s grantmaking strategy and works to support state grantee partners to build their advocacy capacity and achieve their anti-hunger policy goals. He holds two undergraduate degrees from the University of Kansas in Political Science and Latin American Studies. Joey started political organizing with fellow college students in 2011 to push back against radical cuts to public education and the social safety net in Kansas. Most recently, he helped lead grassroots campaigns in his hometown to stop county jail expansion and to achieve comprehensive Sanctuary City ordinance. Before joining MAZON, Joey served as Director of Advocacy at Kansas Appleseed leading state-level advocacy campaigns focused on food safety net, foster care, and juvenile justice reform. He worked with MAZON during the 2018 Farm Bill fight to successfully protect SNAP by pressuring Kansas’s key Congressional leaders on agriculture and food policy. Throughout his career in his beloved Kansas, the state motto has become a mantra for Joey: Ad astra per aspera.
MAZON is not just a Jewish response to hunger, it is the Jewish response to hunger — the collective voice of an age-old people who know how to change the world. Through MAZON, we express our particular passion for justice and our communal commitment to uplifting all people.