Famed New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast posted a surprise notice on her Instagram account in late May next to a sketch in her signature whimsical style: “I’m selling this block print to benefit Food for All Services, an organization in Portland ME which distributes food to people in need,” it said.

The post went on to note that the cartoonist would sell 21 prints for $200 each, and that 100% of any money raised would be donated to the nonprofit. Within a day, another charming sketch on Instagram announced that the prints had sold out.

So how did a cartoonist whose work feels quintessentially neurotic New York end up donating to an organization in Portland?

It turns out Chast’s son, Pete Franzen, lives in Portland and began regularly volunteering at Food for All last winter during the ICE surge in Maine. Whenever his mother comes to visit, he makes her a personal travel brochure with things she might like to see in the area. This time, he told her if she weren’t visiting that day, he’d be volunteering. Would she like to join him? She would, and she did.

“‘She is so funny. How can you keep her away from me?'” the nonprofit’s founder and Executive Director Khadija Ahmed said she mock-scolded Franzen when she met Chast. She had no idea who Chast was: “I didn’t know she was famous. I just know her as Pete’s mother.”

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Then Ahmed saw Chast’s work. “Oh my God. It’s been a beautiful surprise.”

Chast got the idea to donate her prints after volunteering. “Is that cool?” she asked her son. Yes, it is, he replied. Altogether, the money from the sale of the prints was “a huge donation,” Ahmed said.

Money from fundraisers typically takes several months to reach a nonprofit. In this case, it arrived in less than two weeks. Ahmed said it will help feed the many Mainers in need, who are struggling with general hard times and the loss of SNAP benefits.

Food for All Services delivers halal food to immigrant and low-income communities. “We center dignity, identity, and wellness by offering food access, cultural education, and community care designed by and for those we serve,” its mission statement says.

“We have a very low barrier,” Ahmed added. “Just tell us you are hungry and where you need your food delivered, and that’s about it.”

The cartoon Chast drew for the fundraiser shows a steaming pile of unappealing food under a banner headline that says, “But I followed the recipe exactly.” Franzen said his mom is not especially interested in cooking and is self-deprecating about her kitchen skills. His grandmother, he added, never liked to follow recipes. “I don’t want the recipe to tell me what to do,” he quoted her as saying. Chast’s cartoon plays off these family jokes.

He hopes others will be inspired by his mother’s contribution to volunteer or fundraise for Food for All Services themselves, an organization he deeply admires. He sweeps up or delivers food for them about once a week. “You pull up. They help you load some boxes into the car and then you drive around to drop the boxes off,” he said. “It’s not that complicated.”

Ahmed might see that as an understatement. “She’s just a very good person who has raised a great son,” Ahmed said of Chast. “And they both deeply care about humanity and wanted to contribute the best they could to feed the community.”