Have you ever thought of what happens to the food from college cafeterias that doesn’t get eaten? I hadn’t either. But several students from the University of Maryland started thinking about this problem. Two of these founders were Ben Simon and Mia Zavalij. They started thinking about all the food that their college threw away every night and how many people were going hungry in America. They started collecting the leftovers from their cafeterias at night and donating it to local food shelters.
They have found that many colleges in America don’t have food recovery systems in place. The founders started to question what would happen if every college donated unused food. A statistic from their website shares that if every college donated their food, 22 million more meals would be distributed from cafeteria food to people who were starving.
Their success has been huge and they are making a very big impact. They have many statistics about all the work they are doing but these are just a few of them. They have 7 chapters on different college campuses. Together they have collected 120,000 pounds of food which equates to 96,000 meals. Each meal, they estimate, costs only about 10 cents because of transporting the food from the cafeteria to the local shelters. They don’t plan on stopping until every college has a food recovery system in place.
Food Recovery Network seems to be a great organization that is making a positive difference in college campuses all over. I appreciate the simple design of the website and their direct and easy to process efforts. This is a good example of people really turning around a situation to help others. This inspires me to find ways in which we can recycle or renew resources to start an effort to benefit other people.
I have actually thought about this issue and what could be done on Grove City’s campus. The food we are served, despite the opinion of some, is relatively healthy and varied in comparison to much of the food that is often served at homeless shelters and food pantries. Despite the issues of transportation and storage, this could be a very efficient way to serve the homeless and poorer communities in many areas. Maybe there would even be a way to partner with local churches or the Lord’s Pantry to help distribute. We should definitely look into a similar system for Grove City!
This is an exceptional idea that benefits people who are in need. I always like hearing about businesses like this who care about others. When I am eating in a cafeteria or in a restaurant it always bothers me to see people waste food. I think this idea serves as a great way to help solve the problem of wasting food. I would like to see this done at our college if at all possible due to the amount of food that is thrown away every day.