How Jon Bon Jovi Gives Back To His Local Community & Beyond

Jon Bon Jovi is the 2024 MusiCares Person Of The Year. Here’s a quick breakdown of the GRAMMY winner’s philanthropic work, in and outside of his own foundation.

On stage, Jon Bon Jovi sings about giving love a bad name — but off stage, he’s giving love to those in need.

The Bon Jovi frontman has supported a plethora of charitable causes over the past three decades, from the Special Olympics to the American Red Cross to Habitat for Humanity. But the hub of his philanthropic life is undoubtedly the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation.

Formed in 2006, the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation provides pragmatic ways out of homelessness, poverty and hunger for families across the country. They do this via programs that provide food, affordable housing, social services, job training, and other forms of assistance.

“Nearly two decades ago when I formed the JBJ Soul Foundation and JBJ Soul Kitchens, I saw firsthand and continue to see today the impact of charitable, community-based work,” Bon Jovi said in a statement. “I know this for sure: Helping one’s community is helping one’s self.”

As the MusiCares Person Of The Year for 2024, Jon Bon Jovi’s efforts with the JBJ Soul Foundation and beyond will be honored at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Feb. 2, two nights before the 2024 GRAMMYs.

Ahead of the event, learn more about the facets of the rocker’s uplifting and widely beneficial philanthropic organization.

JBJ Soul Kitchen

One important wing of the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation is the JBJ Soul Kitchen, a non-profit community restaurant that serves both “paying and in-need customers.”

Bon Jovi founded the JBJ Soul Kitchen in a former auto body shop, envisioning an establishment that serves delicious, culinary dishes in a restaurant setting, where no one is ever turned away. If diners cannot provide a minimum donation, they can contribute volunteer hours for their meals.

The JBJ Soul Kitchen formed in Red Bank, New Jersey, but soon expanded to a second location in Tom’s River, and most recently opened another in Newark. If you want a delicious meal for a good cause — or know of any New Jerseyans in the Red Bank, Toms River, or Newark area who need one — visit JBJ Soul Kitchen’s website.

JBJ Soul Kitchen Food Bank

As the COVID-19 pandemic flared in May 2020, JBJ Soul Kitchen took action. Noting food supply shortages and a dramatic rise in food requests, the JBJ Soul Foundation formed an emergency food distribution program, on behalf of hungry and needy families.

From its establishment in East Hampton, New York, the JBJ Soul Kitchen Food Bank went on to distribute a whopping 238 tons of healthy foodstuffs, including shelf-stable foods, fruit, vegetables, and premade frozen meals. They did so via eight pantries, which served more than 5,000 people per month for four months.

“We saw volunteers packing bags during a power outage and distributing food under a tent in 90 degrees while churches, classrooms, and extra space turned into food storage and distribution centers,” recalled Dorothea Bongiovi, Bon Jovi’s wife and Founder/Program Director of the JBJ Soul Kitchen, in a statement.

“We saw what was possible when we care for each other,” she continued, “and we are proud to be a small part of that.”

Various Housing Initiatives

Last year, Bon Jovi helped celebrate Project HOME’s 1000th affordable housing unit in Philadelphia; Project HOME is an organization that fights to end homelessness and poverty on the streets of Philly.

As Bon Jovi told The Philadelphia Inquirer upon the unit’s opening, Project HOME always “set a very high bar and raised it every time… We’re proud every time that we can celebrate the opening of a new building that supports our mission.”

Previously, Bon Jovi has further supported affordable housing initiatives, donating $100,000 to HABcore, Inc. in 2019 to help support its 4-unit expansion to its property on River Street in Red Bank.

“The River Street project presented a unique opportunity for the Foundation to help realize our two-fold mission of ending the cycle of homelessness and hunger in the Red Bank community,” Heather Goldfarb, Executive Director of JBJ Soul Foundation, said in a statement.

And these merely scratch the surface: the JBJ Soul Foundation has chipped in with support for more than 700 units of affordable and livable housing, including youths and veterans.

Bon Jovi hasn’t just graced the airwaves with unforgettable rock classics, ones we still rightly year decades on — he’s made the world a better place in a concrete way.