#FRNSpeaks: University of Delaware, Fruit Ninja, and New Chapter Operations

My name is Rachel Cohen and I’m a junior Energy and Environmental Policy major at the University of Delaware. At UD, I’m involved in the Blue Hen Leadership Program, a four tiered leadership program aiming to build students’ leadership skills and encourage opportunities to engage in community service. It was through BHLP that I was able to get to know junior Public Health major Jaime Renman when she led a group of my peers and myself on a spring break trip to Baltimore, Maryland. The trip was focused on urban hunger and revitalization. We spent the week volunteering our time preparing urban farms for growth, working with nonprofits that aimed to rejuvenate the city, and walking the streets of inner city Baltimore giving brown-bagged lunches to homeless folks. Getting to know Jaime during this trip exposed her dedication to service and her passion for public health. These traits continue to guide her as she leads the University of Delaware chapter of the Food Recovery Network.

E-board members Erika Opena, Jaime Renman, and Robin Norko volunteering at the chapter’s 2016 food drive, where the chapter rounded up 98 pounds of food. This year, they surpassed their goal of 100 pounds by collecting 205 pounds!

Jaime reflects on her high school “fruit ninja” job at her local Acme, where she spent hours chopping fruits and vegetables. She remarks on the guilt she felt about the sizable amount of viable produce that she had to throw away. Not only were the chopping techniques inherently wasteful, but she was also told to throw away bruised and imperfect food. This experience sparked an energy in Jaime which catalyzed her passion for fighting food waste. She went on her first alternative spring break trip focused on urban hunger during her freshman year. As a result, Jaime became aware of health disparities surrounding food waste, expressing, “Wow… there are people who live in food deserts and can’t even access healthy food, and yet I’m surrounded by these huge supermarkets where I can buy anything I want and usually waste a lot.” The trip opened Jaime’s eyes to her passion about doing service and helped her identify her values. She returned to campus with a refreshing attitude: “I was like, okay! How do I continue this?”

Lucky for Jaime, the answer sort of fell into her lap. Her resident assistant from freshman year was the vice president and a founding member of FRN at UD, and all but two of the executive board members were set to graduate at the end of the year. Jaime went on a recovery and said to herself, “I don’t really know a lot about FRN, but it seems like a cool initiative and a leadership position to continue service about food insecurity which I’m passionate about.” She became the president her sophomore year and describes the process of taking on the position as being initially quite difficult. There wasn’t a smooth transition in leadership, and Jaime didn’t know where to begin with an e-board that was mostly new to food recovery and her own minimal knowledge about leading a group.

FRN at UD attended the National Food Recovery Dialogue and came back to campus energized, motivated, and inspired with new ways to help spread the mission of FRN.

She says she “had to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.” She forged new relationships and took over communication with UD Dining that had been halted by the e-board members who graduated before her. “I put on my best professional manner and put my passion into it and drive and commitment. That’s what I could give.” She observed how only a portion of the past e-board members were really present so she emphasized that dedication from the newe-board would support the club to grow sustainably. Jaime and her e-board team became more educated about the causes, details, and effects of food waste and began utilizing asset-based approaches that hone the skills of the individual members.  “And it ended up working out,” she says with a wide smile on her face. “Empowering other students and inspiring them to become more aware or to get involved with FRN has been the most rewarding.”

FRN at UD currently recovers food from one of three dining halls on campus. Twice a week, an e-board member and 2 volunteers load the already packaged, frozen food into soft coolers for a representative from the Food Bank of Delaware to pick up. One of the students submits the pounds of food recovered and other data to FRN National.

Although they are recovering less food than in past semesters, the UD chapter maintains relationships with other hunger-fighting nonprofits by informing them that the donations will be back once they recruit more volunteers and have the capacity to recover more frequently. The FRN Chapter held a food drive in Fall 2017 and surpassed their goal by accumulating 205 pounds of non perishables. In order to say, “we still care about you and we still want to donate to you” as Jaime eagerly puts it, they delivered all the food they recovered from the drive to these nonprofits.

The UD chapter is working on reaching out to local restaurants to recover more food. Jaime and Jaclyn Romano, the VP of Restaurant Donations, have begun fostering relationships to start recovering food from local restaurants in the near future. Jaclyn is the point of contact between FRN and local restaurants, seeking to foster relationships to increase food donations. She says that her biggest challenge with the position was “the fear of being brushed off by restaurants” due to anxiety that she would sound insecure and awkward when going to speak to restaurant managers. “Jaime,” Jaclyn says, “was my biggest motivator. I was losing motivation, and Jaime pushed me. We went together to talk to managers of restaurants.” Jaclyn’s perspective transformed. “I realized how awesome of an idea people think FRN is. Every manager I spoke to was so passionate for the idea and didn’t hesitate to want to be involved.” Jaclyn can’t wait to see the club initiating more recoveries in Spring 2018.

E-board members Macy Oteri, Jaime Renman, and Izzy Aswad pose with produce that is rejected due to its imperfections at the NFRD conference.

In efforts to increase membership, the e-board members first began speaking to classrooms about FRN, the mission, and how to join the movement. Their member turnout at meetings significantly increased as a result. Jaclyn says their meetings began with just the e-board, “to now having a genuine group of people that are really interested and want to be involved.” They’ve formed committees, made up of a few students led by a member of the e-board, who work to find more donation sources, more hunger-fighting nonprofits to receive food, and other ways to promote food waste education. Other techniques to increase awareness and membership include handing out facts about food waste with a piece of candy in the student centers and asking food waste trivia questions to passersby to engage the community in a quick and fun way. Jaime has even had dreams about the future success of the UD FRN chapter. “I think there are really good things coming. I have to stay motivated and we have to keep motivating each other and keep building the movement,” she says. 

On a personal level, “FRN definitely built my leadership skills in terms of learning how to work on a team and how I work in a team,” says Jaime. Additionally, the position has improved her communication, professionalism, and courage. She has realized that it doesn’t hurt to go out there and seek food donations, because “the worst people can say is ‘no’.” Leading this transformative process has shown Jaime that she has the power to impact positive change. Her experience in FRN “shows that this generation cares a lot and that we’re on a positive trajectory.”

Alumni Spotlight: Rebecca Leighton, University of Minnesota Twin Cities '16

Our December Alumni Spotlight is Rebecca Leighton, a 2017 graduate of the University of Minnesota at Twin Cities. In her third year as an undergraduate, where she studied Dietetics and Nutrition, Rebecca founded her school’s Food Recovery Network chapter. Though she was “met with a lot of resistance initially”  her “experience leading this initiative taught [her] to persevere in order to do something [she] believed in.” We’re thrilled to feature Rebecca in the Alumni Spotlight because the passion she fostered during her time with FRN has led her to amazing places where she continues that original mission - to fight waste and feed people.

Rebecca’s favorite FRN memory is of her very first recovery, where she and her team of about fifteen students recovered 32 pounds of food. Her FRN team has come a long way since then - they now recover at least one hundred pounds at each recovery. She says, “It was amazing to see such quick growth in something that I had worked so hard at starting.” The ability to persevere, learn from her mistakes, and keep going despite obstacles after founding and leading a successful FRN chapter, she says, is what gave her the confidence to follow her dreams of creating a food pantry, called Nutritious U, on campus after graduation. Today, she runs that program while also working toward her master’s degree in public health and nutrition.

As tuition rates climb and students find themselves choosing between textbooks and food, more food pantries are being established on college and university campuses across the country. As the director of Nutritious U, Rebecca has a number of responsibilities. She orders thousands of pounds of food each month, organizes the shelves, staffs the pantry, reaches out to food insecure students, and coordinates a leadership team of 10 students and additional volunteers.  In the near future, Rebecca is hoping to set up a streamlined process with University of Minnesota Twin Cities FRN Chapter, so recovered food from the dining hall can be delivered to Nutritious U. Rebecca also coordinates the meal donation program Swipe Out Hunger on her campus and teaches students about health and well-being, such as cooking classes.

To current FRN students, Rebecca says, “Stay strong, keep persisting, and keep growing.  Never let anyone tell you that you can't do what you are passionate about.” You never know where the hard work of establishing a chapter could lead you; as in Rebecca’s case, it could be in a master’s program, directing a food pantry, and transforming hundreds if not thousands of lives with healthy, warm meals.

Thanks for everything you do, Rebecca!

Are you an FRN alumnus? If so, we want to stay in touch! Fill out the Alumni Survey on our website here.  You just might be featured in our upcoming spotlight series!

Have questions/comments about our growing alumni network? Contact Sarah Diamond, Alumni Programs VISTA, at alumni@foodrecoverynetwork.org

Alumni Spotlight: Kelsey Rogers, Roger Williams University '17

Food Recovery Network is working to build its first-ever alumni network to offer resources and connection opportunities to FRN alumni hoping to stay engaged in food recovery efforts beyond graduation. As part of this, we will be showcasing an exceptional FRN alumnus each month who exemplifies leadership, teamwork, and community engagement in our Alumni Spotlight series.

Our first featured alumnus is Kelsey Rogers, a 2017 graduate of Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island. Kelsey founded the RWU FRN chapter in April 2014, and recalls her favorite FRN memory as bonding with her team as they drove to shelters to deliver food during the team’s early days as a Chapter In Progress (CHIP). She says, “It was nights like these that I can look back on fondly and see just how far I’ve come.” Since then, RWU FRN has recovered more than 21,000 pounds of food and has fostered countless meaningful relationships on the campus and beyond. As the chapter president, Kelsey worked to expand her chapter’s capacity through attending a series of food waste events. During these events, she connected with like-minded individuals with whom she would start Phood, a food waste tracking company.

Phood is a commercial food waste prevention company that works with more than twenty institutions nationwide to reduce waste, find donation solutions, and engage communities in food recovery. Kelsey is the Food Recovery Specialist at Phood, where she develops software to make food recovery easier for clients. She also serves as the lead graphic designer, designing the look of their different tablet platforms, making marketing materials and designing the Phood website. Check out Kelsey’s graphic design page for more information here.

“Through FRN,” she says, “I was able to realize my passion for fighting food waste and hunger. Since then, my passion has guided every decision I make. FRN has given me the confidence to pursue my dream job, and the leadership experience to get there.”

Congratulations and thank you, Kelsey, for all you have done to fight waste and feed people in college and beyond!

Are you an FRN alumnus? If so, we want to stay in touch! Fill out the Alumni Survey on our website here.  You just might be featured in our upcoming spotlight series!

Have questions/comments about our growing alumni network? Contact Sarah Diamond, Alumni Programs VISTA, at alumni@foodrecoverynetwork.org. 

FRN Students Don’t Only Move Out of Dorms, They Move Out For Hunger

Students often throw out a lot of things when they move out of their residence halls at the end of the school year – including perfectly good food. While rushing to catch a train, bus, or plane home after an exam, the last thing on a student’s mind is saving still good cans of tuna fish, bags of beans, or packs of Ramen noodles from going into a landfill.

Move Out Day at Goucher College

This is where Food Recovery Network (FRN) and Move For Hunger (MFH) come in. The two organizations knew this issue was preventable through collaboration, and so created an end-of-year event called Move Out Day, where student volunteers collect food that would have otherwise gone straight into a dumpster while also raising campus awareness on food waste and hunger.

In Spring 2017, FRN and MFH co-hosted Move Out Days with FRN chapters on five participating college campuses: Brandeis University (Waltham, MA), George Washington University (Washington, D.C.), Goucher College (Baltimore, MD), Monmouth University (West Long Branch, NJ), and Southern Connecticut State University (New Haven, CT). College students saw first-hand the amount of food that could be saved from the landfill. Each chapter was paired with a local moving company to deliver the collected food to a local food bank or pantry. Thanks to the incredible work and passion of the students, truck drivers, sponsors and FRN and MFH staff, a combined total of 5,059 pounds of food was recovered and delivered to those who need it most.

Thank you to the event sponsors, Doorsteps, Atlas Van Lines, Dumpsters.com and Clif Bar, for all helping make the event a spectacular success. Thank you to Upworthy for documenting the event and telling its story.

2017 was the inaugural year of Move Out Day, and FRN and MFH couldn’t be more thrilled to expand on this incredible momentum to make the event even bigger and more impactful in Spring 2018. Next semester, participation will quadruple, and about 20 chapters across the country will have the opportunity to coordinate a Move Out Day. If you are an FRN chapter that is interested in participating this year, please fill out the form here. If you are a company that is interested in getting involved and learning more about how you can sponsor the event, please email us at partnerships@foodrecoverynetwork.org.

Sara Merken, George Washington University Chapter Founder and Former Chapter President, spearheaded Move Out Day on GW’s campus. Read below to learn about Sara’s experience and to join us in our excitement in planning for our Second Annual Move Out Day in 2018:

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Move Out Day at George Washington University

Our chapter was new to GW’s campus the prior fall, and we had spent the prior few months attempting to get the Food Recovery Network name out there. Although many of the students who came by the Move Out For Hunger event tables had never heard of FRN (yet!), the intrigue and necessity for many students to get rid of their excess peanut butter, pasta, canned foods, and oatmeal packets before moving out of their dorm rooms allowed us to educate passersby about our cause and ask them to come back with the food that would have otherwise been thrown away.

The months of preparation and excitement could not even have predicted the success of the event. The day started off somewhat slow, and the only students passing by our stand were scurrying to the library to study for finals. As the day went on, however, the event began advertising itself. We were situated in Kogan Plaza, a main area at GW that gets a lot of foot traffic, and the bright green signs, miles-high piles of moving boxes, variety of Clif bars and stacks of t-shirts attracted many interested and unaware but curious students.  

Congratulations to all five schools that successfully put together such an exciting and necessary donation event! We collectively received thousands of pounds of nonperishable food along the east coast and should all be incredibly proud of our accomplishments.  A big thank you to Food Recovery Network, Move For Hunger, and each of the other sponsors for allowing our chapter to make a difference on GW’s campus and in the greater DMV area! An additional thank you to the staff members from Food Recovery Network who helped us out on the day of the event, and to my wonderful executive board for putting on such a memorable day!

Do You Believe In (NFRD) Magic?

Dear FRNds,

Thanks to of all of you who attended, Food Recovery Network’s second annual National Food Recovery Dialogue (NFRD) was a success. Each and every one of you who contributed an idea, shared a question, offered a suggestion, met a new FRNd, jotted down a “brain blast” for others to read, and absorbed knowledge made the conference what it was, creating an energy that pulsed through the rooms of the University of D.C. The weekend would not have been the same without you. You brought the magic.

At the National Office, we’ve been talking about “NFRD Magic” since the first NFRD in April 2016. Unanimously, we had a desire to bring that magic into the planning of our second annual dialogue, so we asked ourselves: what is that magic and where does it come from? How do we ensure this year’s participants feel the same magic that was felt last year? We had to think beyond the countless meetings, months of planning and the boxes of conference swag lining our office hallway. We imagined sitting in a room, surrounded by hundreds of people passionate about and committed to the same mission. We envisioned chapters in progress conversing with chapters who are four, five, six years old. We anticipated discussions in breakouts going something like this: “Our chapter struggles with volunteer organizing, how can we make it better?” and the answer of “At our chapter, we do this…” being one of many suggestions given as support. The advice, the best practices, the tips and tricks. It’s all magic.

At NFRD, we saw this magic come to life. We saw strangers become friends, mentees become inspired, and the FRN mission manifest itself in the hearts of leaders from all across the country.

While you spend your days focused on your community, your home, your people, there are thousands of people across the country focusing on their communities, their homes, their people. This was the weekend when we came together, looked one another in the eye and said “I care, too.”

That’s the NFRD magic.

Now what will you do with it? How will you carry it with you? If you ever feel weary or burned out, look in your heart and remember the way it felt to be surrounded by FRNds who care just as much as you. Then remember that they’re out there across the country, in the next city over, or maybe right next door, focusing on the same things you are and fighting the same fight you are. Remember that they’re there to help their fellow FRNd.

We’re so thankful to share in this movement with all of you.

Warmly,

Regina and hc