'Corn Kid' interview: Social media sensation helps donate canned goods for Thanksgiving

NEW YORK -- The social media sensation dubbed the "Corn Kid" has done a beautiful thing for Thanksgiving, helping donate thousands of canned goods to those in need this holiday.

Tariq, a 7-year-old from Brooklyn, New York, went viral earlier this year on Recess Therapy professing his unabashed love of corn.

He joined the nonprofit City Harvest to help unload canned vegetables with Green Giant at the Cohen Community Food Rescue Center in New York's Sunset Park.

The second grader told New York ABC station WABC that he likes corn so much, "because it's healthy."

In total, 50,000 cans of corn were packed up for the nonprofit, along with various dried goods and 13,000 turkeys for this year's holiday meal boxes.

City Harvest works with many local restaurants and markets to save food that would otherwise be tossed out and has rescued close to 75-million pounds of fresh food and delivered it to 400 food pantries in New York City.

According to the nonprofit, City Harvest gives out nearly 200,000 pounds of food each day with boxes put together by Repack to Give Back Volunteers before being distributed across the five boroughs.

In the viral video from August that amassed millions of likes on social media, Tariq delivered multiple one-liners about his love of corn that served as a catalyst for remixes, trending audio and parody videos, especially from the food creator community.

"I really like corn -- a big lump with knobs. It has the juice," his auto-tuned voice says over a synthesized guitar riff in one of the aforementioned videos posted by cookbook author and food personality Nicole Modic, also known as KaleJunkie.

The philanthropic move with Green Giant comes on the heels of Tariq being named South Dakota's official "corn-bassador" this fall.