This month, we are thrilled to welcome Elaine Losekamp as the newest member of the FRN team! Elaine will serve as Program Associate, using her lived experience with FRN and the food and agricultural sector to continue strengthening our programs and propelling the food recovery movement further.
About Elaine
Elaine is a graduate of Western Kentucky University (WKU), where she studied Agriculture and founded an FRN chapter. While leading the WKU chapter and maintaining her studies, Elaine also served as Committee Chair for FRN’s Student and Alumni Advisory Board (SAAB) and she supported FRN’s Food Recovery Verified program as an intern for nine months. Elaine has worked in food systems in several different capacities, including a multi-year internship at a community garden and a position with a gleaning nonprofit for which she developed a regional gleaning initiative. She is a strong believer in the importance of food waste reduction to our efforts to mitigate climate change.
Top Highlights as WKU Chapter President
The biggest highlight of my time as Chapter President was seeing my chapter grow and become self-sustaining. It was incredible to watch the enthusiasm for and participation in my chapter grow on campus and in the wider community.
A year after my chapter was founded, a local restaurant invited us to recover over 1,000 pounds of food. It was my chapter’s largest recovery ever, and we pulled it off in three days! Completing such a big recovery gave us the confidence and motivation to expand our network of donors and continue recovering food throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
During my last semester, my chapter recovered its 5,000th pound of food and our fantastic advisors at WKU put together a recognition ceremony, attended by the University President, to celebrate our accomplishments. The ceremony fell on my 22nd birthday, and the University President led the crowd in singing happy birthday. It was definitely an event to remember!
Advice for New Chapter Leaders
Don’t give up! Establishing a new chapter can be extremely challenging and at times discouraging, but if you keep working at it, eventually all of the pieces will fall into place and your chapter will have an incredibly positive impact on your community.
Elaine’s Vision for a Just and Equitable Food System
In a just and equitable food system, everyone would have access to nutritious food, and producing that food would have a minimally negative impact on our climate, natural resources, and the other living beings on our planet. Workers would be paid a fair wage to grow, harvest, and process food and would have safe working conditions. Animals used for meat, egg, and dairy production would be treated ethically (and people’s diets would have a much greater emphasis on plant-based foods and include far fewer animal products). Food would be consumed close to where it was produced, waste would be minimized, and methods of food production would be ethical and sustainable.
Starting this fall, Elaine will be in close contact with all of our Student Chapters to make sure everyone has a great semester. We hope you’ll join us in giving her a warm welcome!