Imagine being a woman with small children, under constant threat from a violent partner, with no money and no options to safely leave. Then someone throws out a literal lifeline.
The new Hayward office of Meathead Movers, in partnership with Alameda County Family Justice Center, is offering unlimited free moves for people fleeing domestic violence through the moving company’s longstanding #MoveToEndDV program.
That such a program is needed in Alameda County is proved through the numbers. A June 2018 report compiled by the Community Assessment Planning and Evaluation Unit, Alameda County Public Health Department, and the Alameda County Domestic Violence Fatality Review Team stated, “Since 2014, there have been 6,000 domestic violence-related calls each year in Alameda County.”
During the pandemic, these numbers increased. Though they have since declined from that high, they remain a serious issue.
Founder and CEO Aaron Steed started Meathead Movers when he was just a teenager, hiring fellow athletes as movers. The company’s name comes from that time, when he and his pals would deliberately leave weight machines in the gym covered in sweat to gross out incoming female athletes, earning them the epithet “meatheads.”
It was also during that time, he said in a phone interview, that he began getting calls from people desperate to move, who offered him their couch or TV in lieu of payment. He and his young movers would often move them for free. But one day, some years in the company’s history, a violent partner showed up.
“He started yelling. A toaster oven was thrown. It was a very volatile situation,” Steed said. At that point, he realized he needed to create a better, safer structure. He reached out to the local women’s shelter, and now, all eight Meathead Movers locations work with shelters, which call the company after verifying the need is real, and also offer other services.
To date, the company has completed thousands of these moves statewide, including over 100 in 2025, while donating more than $120K to California shelters. In Alameda County, Meathead Movers will donate $20,000 in additional support for transitions into permanent housing and shelter operations.
Meathead Movers receives many thank-you cards and calls from those assisted, but Steed believes what’s important is that the program represents a core company value: community service.
“The program has turned into a really important thing that we take pride in,” he said. He also noted that it provides the young athletes he employs, especially the males, a chance to be “part of the solution.”
It also fits in, Steed said, with other core company values: background checks and drug testing for all potential employees, and a 400-point training program. “We see ourselves as an old-fashioned company,” he said, “offering honest, ethical service.”
