Babson Participates in Local Food Rescue Program to Donate Thousands of Meals
December 7, 2017 (Wellesley, MA) – A number of schools and colleges in Wellesley and the Metro-West area will donate an estimated 20,000 meals this year to an organization in Cambridge that takes wholesome, edible surplus and leftover food and passes it on to people in need.
Wellesley’s 3R Working Group – which consists of representatives from the Department of Public Works, the Sustainable Energy Committee, and the Natural Resources Commission – has been working with the Environmental Protection Agency/New England and the Cambridge-based non-profit Food For Free to develop a collaborative food rescue initiative. The food service vendors dedicated to its implementation include Whitsons Culinary Group, Rebecca’s Café, Sodexo, Chartwells, and AVI Foodsystems. The initiative delivers on the goals of the EPA’sFood Recovery Challenge Programfocusing on local K-12 schools, colleges and universities.
合作食品救援计划的参与者包括韦尔斯利公立学校，巴布森学院，本特利大学，奥林工程学院和韦尔斯利学院。beplay官网体育迄今为止，自9月以来，已经向本特利，奥林和韦尔斯利中学捐赠了超过4,000磅的食物。该计划最近几周在其他学校推出。有了大量的参与学校和学院，将鼓励其他可维修剩菜食品的当地组织加入。
免费食物- di的粮食救援组织stributed over 2 million pounds of food last year (www.foodforfree.org) – is repackaging this rescued food into single-serve meals. Recipients may include people living in shelters, in temporary housing such as motels, in housing without full kitchens, and those receiving Meals on Wheels.
“Translating this dream into a realty has been a complicated challenge as there were few precedents of such a comprehensive and collaborative initiative,” said Ellen Korpi, Vice Chair of the Town’s Sustainable Energy Committee. “It took the support and guidance of the Wellesley’s school administration, food services vendor, and the health department to bring this project to fruition.”
“In order to make it worth our sending a truck to this area, we needed a minimum volume per pick up,” explained Sasha Purpura, Executive Director of Food For Free. “Because these institutions collaborated and came to us as a group, we were able to view this as a single collection, making them a viable food donation partner.”
“食品服务组织的承诺和团队合作是该计划成功的关键，” 3R工作组成员兼该计划标准操作程序的作者艾莉森·克罗斯（Alison Cross）说。“他们负责通过收集，存储和准备的过程来移动盈余食物，同时保护食物的完整性和安全性。”
Wasted food is a growing problem in this country and an untapped opportunity. In 2014 alone, more than 38 million tons of food waste was generated and the EPA estimates that food makes up the single largest category of waste material in landfills, constituting a fifth of discarded municipal solid waste. Much of this wasted food is wholesome and edible and could be serving the one in six, or 52 million American households, that were “food insecure” in 2013, according to the US Department of Agriculture. “Food insecurity,” which describes a household’s inability to provide enough food for every person to live an active, healthy life, is one way to measure hunger. In Massachusetts today, it is estimated that one in ten people are food insecure.
One of the side benefits that stem from food waste donation programs, according to the EPA, is that organizations that donate food see new opportunities for reducing leftovers. The donation process creates an informational feedback loop for waste generators that inevitably reduces both their wasted food, and their food waste removal costs.
当3R工作组招募了本计划的当地大学时，与位于韦尔斯利的马斯贝社区学院的对话显示，在那里进行调查的学生中有52％表明他们是食品不安全的。现在，免费食品正在与Massbay合作，为这些学生开发一项计划，以获取免费家庭餐食食品的食物。
有关更多信息，请访问https://wellesleyma.gov/811/4282/waste-wise-wellesley或通过mmartello@wellesleyma.gov与Wellesley可持续能源委员会的管理员Marybeth Martello联系，781-431-431-101-101-1019 x22229。