FRN Launches “More Students, Less Waste” Campaign
We wanted to take the time, seeing as it is the start of National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, to reflect, and to share some exciting news.
FIRST, THE PROBLEM
Twenty-two million pounds of food is wasted every year on our college campuses. That’s 22 million pounds of food sitting in landfills releasing methane, and that’s 22 million pounds of food that is not helping feed the 1 in 6 Americans who are food insecure.
NOW, HERE’S THE EXCITING PART!
Food Recovery Network hopes to change all of that. In conjunction with the 2012 National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness 
Week, FRN is launching More Students, Less Waste, a campaign to bring student-led food recovery programs to every college in the country. We want to see a country where our young people are taking action on their campuses to reduce waste, help the environment, and eliminate hunger in their own communities.
We have a team of students who have all started and run successful food recovery programs on their campuses, and we are excited to reach out to students at other schools and work with them to start programs on their own campuses.
The idea is simple: Students work with Dining Services to recover edible, leftover food from their campus dining halls and donate it to organizations in the community that feed the hungry.
The vision is this: Within 10 years, we want to see food recovery programs on every college campus in the country. And we want students leading the effort.
Now here’s the plan: We have put together all the tools to make it easy for students to start programs at their schools.
- New Chapter Toolkit, explaining how to start a chapter and the benefits to your school and community.
- Letter of Support from Dining Service Directors praising student-led food recovery
- A copy of the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act explaining how schools are protected from lawsuits if they donate excess food
- Up to $500 in grants to new programs to help them get started.
- A team of student coordinators who will share their experience with campus food recovery programs and work with you every step of the way as you start a program.
With all the prep work done, we are putting the call out to our nation’s college students to step up to the plate and make our vision a reality. We firmly believe students need to be at the center of the food waste reduction movement, and there is no better or easier way to start than on your own campus.
By the end of the academic year, we hope to have 20 programs up and running, but we need people’s help! There are three things you can do right now to make our vision a reality.
- Share this blog post with your friends at other schools
- Join the Movement
- Get Involved
Cheers,
The FRN Team
