Summer Intern Dives Deeper into Fighting Food Insecurity

Current student leader at Frostburg State University, Rachael Michalski, interned for FRN this summer through the Maryland Public Service Scholars Program to support our development and fundraising efforts. Read about Rachael’s experience interning at FRN and the key learnings that she found inspiring as an FRN staff member.

This summer, I had the opportunity to intern at the Food Recovery Network national office through the Maryland Public Service Scholars Program. When I was notified that FRN had been selected as my host site, I was thrilled to get started and eager to join the food waste movement. 

Through initiatives on my college campus at Frostburg State, I had the opportunity to work with our on-campus food pantry as well as volunteer with the Maryland Food Bank, so I had some hunger-fighting experience going into this internship with FRN from the start. Being an active member of my community and serving those in need is important to me. 

This summer, I truly learned how a strong team can drive a national movement to combat a systemic issue like hunger and make real change.

Behind the scenes, I had the pleasure to get to know the Food Recovery Network National Team and learn about the jobs each person does every day to drive this national movement forward. There are many individuals that make up the FRN team and while each individual works in different roles, together the team collectively works towards a shared goal to mitigate food waste and end hunger in the U.S.

While doing my work, I learned about the intricate details that are vital to a nonprofit’s success. I learned about funders, grant language, CRM software, and many other things that allow an organization to be able to fundraise to support its mission and programs. I learned useful skills for the future of my professional career, and I also grew as a person. I am coming out of this experience with stronger communication, teamwork, and interpersonal skills. But most importantly, I learned about the passion that each Food Recovery Network team member has to help communities experiencing hunger nationwide. 

Beyond working behind the scenes, this summer internship experience also provided me with an opportunity to work directly on the front line where I participated in a food recovery at the Gaylord Hotel in Washington D.C. I was thrilled to have participated in what I would call a successful food recovery, where 38 trays of food and a box of fruit that would have otherwise been wasted were recovered and donated to the Central Union Mission in Washington D.C. to feed individuals facing hunger in the city. That was a really great experience! 

Food Recovery Network works tirelessly to serve communities all across the United States with gratitude and grace. This team and their work is incredible and I was honored to be a part of it this summer! 

At the end of my internship, the FRN team offered me a part-time position to continue working on development initiatives as well as dive into the programming side of the organization. In my continuing work, I will be working to create a nationwide map that will show local food recovery locations, in order to continue to prevent waste. I am excited to continue this impactful journey!

FRN Chapter Leader Shares Highlights from the 2023 ReFED Summit

Arjun Nair is the President of FRN’s student-led chapter at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. In May, Arjun attended ReFED’s annual Food Waste Solutions Summit, an event that convenes representatives from the public and private sectors to discuss solutions to food loss and food waste in the United States. Read about Arjun’s experience attending this in-person event and the key learnings that he found inspiring as an FRN chapter leader.

In May, I had the incredible opportunity to attend the ReFED 2023 Food Waste Solutions Summit in St. Louis. This annual summit brings together the top leaders and pioneers in the food waste space to spark collaboration and innovation, and it was an amazing experience to be a part of this discussion. For three days, I was flooded with information and inspiration about ways that we are combating food waste around the globe, and what struck me most was the endless diversity in how we are all tackling food waste. 

Photo credit: Jessica Yurinko

Arjun Nair speaking during The Future is Now: The Power of Indomitable Youth to Spark Action panel.

As a speaker on The Future is Now: The Power of Indomitable Youth to Spark Action panel, I had the opportunity to share the Food Recovery Network’s mission and our unique stance as a college-student-driven movement. I also learned about the other panelists’ inspiring efforts, like Ben Collier’s work to rescue surplus food from farms through The Farmlink Project, and Kenneth L. Moss Jr.’s mission to collect and compost food scraps from his neighborhood through the Baltimore Compost Collective. While we all have a niche focus, all of these solutions are equally prosperous and important to mitigate food waste along the supply chain.

Photo credit: Jessica Yurinko

Left to right: Moderator, Marvin Hayes, Baltimore Compost Collective; Arjun Nair, FRN Student Leader; Mia Zavalij, co-founder of FRN; Kenneth Moss Jr, Baltimore Compost; Ben Collier, The Farmlink Project

At each event, the room was flooded with passionate words from diverse voices, each sharing their approaches to combating food loss and waste, the challenges they face through their work, and the future directions their efforts may take as the landscape for food waste reduction continues to evolve.

“Overall, this conference opened my eyes to the ocean which is the food waste prevention space, and where our little boat fits into that grand picture. The individuals I met and the organizations I learned about during this conference added new dimensions to how I view FRN’s food recovery efforts, and I want to take the time to highlight their incredible stories.”

— Arjun Nair

Ivan Jaminez

Program manager, hole food rescue

Ivan Jaminez is the Program Manager of Hole Food Rescue located in Teton County, Wyoming, an area where the average per capita income is $318,297 dollars but the median income is only $66,296. As an immigrant from Puerto Rico, he is a part of the substantial immigrant population located in this area, which is disproportionately at risk of food insecurity. His talk at the ReFED Summit focused not on how organizations can increase the number of pounds they recover but rather on how to strengthen their ties with the community. He emphasized how food waste organizations should strive to know the culture and identity of their client populations, positioning themselves as community members rather than an “outside savior.”

These efforts have helped increase Hole Food Rescue’s reach and ties to the community, making food waste and redistribution efforts exponentially more fruitful. As an FRN chapter leader, I feel this advice can and should be applied by all FRN chapters to strengthen the relationships they hold with the communities they serve.

Dr. sara elnakib

department of family and community health sciences chair, rutgers university

Dr. Sara Elnakib is the Department of Family and Community Health Sciences Chair at Rutgers University, and her team visits local K-12 schools to promote child health equity and stewardship in food waste. During her talk, Dr. Elnakib shared a story that really moved me. During her school visits, her team provides a visible demonstration of food waste by lining up the cartons of milk that go to waste at school every day on tables in the cafeteria. She described the shocked looks on children’s faces when they can actually see how much milk their schools toss daily, and how these talks have inspired change by raising awareness among students. Hearing about her creative efforts to make something serious like food waste easier for kids to understand and digest was amazing. Often, younger people are not included in conversations about food waste and recovery/prevention, something that FRN strives to change by working with college students. Dr. Elnakib’s discussion on the importance of starting these educational efforts early resonated strongly with me because of the connection to FRN’s mission.

bruce taylor

President, enviro-stewards

Bruce Taylor is the president of Enviro-Stewards, a consulting company that helps other companies reduce carbon emissions and food waste. One of the many stories he shared was about visiting a cheese packaging company, where he noticed a dysfunctional conveyer belt that dropped several blocks of cheese onto the floor each day. After weighing what seemed like a  minuscule amount of cheese that fell off the belt, Enviro-Stewards calculated that the company was losing $70,000 per year - money that could otherwise be used towards efforts such as food waste prevention. I was shocked to learn how these small, seemingly inconsequential problems can accumulate to become something far greater. Taylor’s story offered a reminder that every step of the food production process should be analyzed for improvement to reduce food waste, regardless of how long-standing or mundane it is. Even seemingly small amounts of food loss add up!

Left to right: FRN Student Leader, Riya Chadha; Director of Development at FRN, Cassie Olovsson, FRN Student Leader, Arjun Nair

All of these speakers talked about different ideas and problems, yet their respective mission and motivations overlap with each other and that of FRN. Integrating with the communities we serve, reaching out to youth, and ensuring efficient processes are all important, realistic targets that any FRN chapter can pursue. In general, it can be easy to fall into the linear backbone of food recovery and delivery. However, the power of students being in interdisciplinary environments surrounded by collaborative efforts gives FRN’s network a unique opportunity for diverse outreach and impact. 

This summit presented the opportunity to discuss all of the amazing work being done in the food space and revealed to me the variety of impactful approaches that exist to prevent food loss and waste. At every turn, people expressed their desire to interact with the younger generation, and FRN is perfectly positioned to be a vehicle and leader for these efforts. FRN students have the capacity for incredible, multi-faceted change, and this conference served as a reminder of the limitless ways we can improve and collaborate to fight food waste and improve our local communities. 

Remember: your small action results in big gains

It’s been four months since the momentum of the Super Bowl helped bring the work of Food Recovery Network into the homes of millions of people thanks to a live CNN interview, CNN news article, and other media coverage*. 

FRN’s message is clear and simple: 

1) there are 26 million tons of food that goes to waste each year at the farm and institutional level that could instead go into communities facing food insecurity; 

2) there are 34 million people right now who are unnecessarily facing food insecurity who desperately need that food; 

3) we all have the power to change our collective action from food waste to food recovery today.

I wanted to bring this moment back for all of us, after all of the excitement of seeing FRN so prominently displayed on our TV screens and in the news media, to remind us of the invitation I extended to everyone: we all have the power to ensure perfectly good surplus food is donated to those who need it.

Remembrance of things past: We’re in this to win it!

My invitation included a few ideas of what you can do to immediately begin to normalize food recovery. Here’s a recap:

• Get refreshed on FRN’s Food Recovery Verified Program that supports companies and  events in creating a recovery plan for their surplus food. Bonus: bookmark the page and send it to everyone you know. I’m not kidding. Send it to everyone because there’s still a lot of confusion about who can recover food and what food can be recovered, and FRN is literally an expert in clearing up any confusion.

• If your company hosts a conference of any size, make sure there is a recovery plan for any surplus food from the event. You can start by getting in touch with the event coordinators. If the event coordinators were not planning on recovering surplus food, no problem - just introduce them to us and we’ll talk to them about how they can do that. Bonus: the event coordinators might be touched that you were interested in what they’re doing on their end of the company. Building goodwill among colleagues supports a thriving company. I study this stuff and I’m happy to talk with you about it, and I wrote about it here and here for starters!

• If your company has a corporate cafeteria, the same approach applies. Who’s the dining manager? Chances are, we have a relationship with the national dining provider already, so we’re halfway through the door. Find out who your dining manager is, ask them if they have a food recovery plan in place, and if not, introduce them to us. Bonus: have you ever talked to the dining manager of your corporate cafeteria? They and their staff take a lot of pride in making the food that’s available for you and your colleagues. I know, because I’ve spoken with many dining providers over the years and we survey them, too! The last thing they and their staff want to do is throw away the food that goes unsold, but sometimes they don’t know that there is something else they can do with the food.

• Donating to FRN supports our ability to mobilize across the US and increase access to food in communities where it’s most needed. I want to also emphasize that due to systematic disinvestment in certain communities, increasing the flow of food is not only essential, but so is being authentically partnered in these communities. This also means that we must often address the underlying needs of the community before we can really see forward momentum in the flow of food. We talk about this more in our latest public Roundtable Talk. Bonus: if it’s in your budget to become a monthly sustaining donor to FRN, your support helps us stabilize financially and have a good sense of the consistent income we have coming in each month. My main role as FRN’s Executive Director is to fundraise for FRN so that we have the funding necessary to do our basic work. This doesn’t even include what it means for us to expand our work, which is also so desperately needed.

Turning Nos into Yeses: You got this!

I have two pieces of advice for you if this is your first time engaging in conversations around food recovery. First, you can do it! I know you can and I believe in you! Second, don’t take no for an answer. At FRN, we hear no a lot from folks. Many times people will tell us no, the food can’t be donated, but that is simply not true! The Food Donation Improvement Act is just one federal protection in place that makes donating food legal and easy. We know that people don’t say no because they love to throw food away. When you have conversations with event coordinators, catering teams, or dining managers about recovering food, keep trying your best, try to find out why they might be concerned, and don’t hesitate to put them in touch with us to talk more. We’ve heard all of the reasons people say no hundreds of times before and we have solutions for almost any reason, including:

• They truly believe it’s not safe or legal to donate food;

• They are unsure of who would be liable for the food once it leaves their facility;

• They are not even sure if they are “allowed” to do something else with surplus food besides what they’ve always done and been approved to do, aka throw it away;

• They have their system down pat for how they run their back of house and it’s very difficult to:

  • Add a step to the process (read: recover food instead of throw it away);

  • Disrupt a very tight schedule of prepping from one meal to the next, or closing down the house for the night. They might fear that a recovery plan will extend their timing and screw up their process;

  • Try something new: who will help get it started, who will train the staff, and what if it doesn’t run smoothly right away?

We’ve been supporting food recoveries for over a decade and we’re here to help turn nos into yeses. After all, if we took a no at face value, we would not have been able to recover more than 12 million pounds of food across the US. Heck, we wouldn't have even started in the first place because when the co-founders of FRN first approached their dining manager about their idea for food recovery, her answer was no. And when they approached her again, her answer was…still no. We have to keep trying because we know that there is no reason we should be tossing out perfectly good food.

Thank you for RSVPing yes to our invitation to do the right thing with surplus food, support our communities, and help our environment.

PS. *my opening sentence, “It’s been four months since…” immediately brought to my mind the song “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Prince…how about you?

White House Centers Community Leaders in Discussion on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health

Daniella Passariello is a senior at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and the President of FRN’s student-led chapter on campus. Recently, Daniella attended the White House Challenge to End Hunger & Build Healthy Communities, an event following up on the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health last fall. Read about Daniella’s experience attending this in-person event and her insightful observations about how community leaders, like the students powering our movement, are making a difference in the fight against hunger below.

Last month, I had the amazing opportunity to attend the White House Challenge to End Hunger & Build Healthy Communities event in Washington, DC, and it was an experience that will stay with me for a long time. The White House Challenge builds upon President Biden’s goal to end hunger, reduce diet-related diseases, and reduce health disparities in the US by 2030, which was announced as part of the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health in September 2022. 

The event space was cozy, but the atmosphere was electric. I heard from political figures like Ambassador Susan Rice, listened to two panels moderated by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and sat in on a fireside chat with Chef José Andrés. It was enlightening to see policymakers, business representatives, nonprofit leaders, and community activists working together in real time, and to better understand how essential this collaboration is to solve the complex and intersectional issue of hunger in the U.S. 

“What struck me most about this event was hearing from community leaders...there were three panelists whose stories really resonated with me, and I’m delighted to highlight their stories here.”

— Daniella Passariello

What struck me most about this event was hearing from community leaders who have successfully built strategic partnerships within the public and private sectors to fight hunger on the ground. I found it fascinating to see the role that the government can play to uplift community leaders to create solutions that center the needs of the people they serve. In particular, there were three panelists whose stories really resonated with me, and I’m delighted to highlight their stories here.

Robert White

Board Member, Feeding Southwest Virginia

Robert White, a Board Member of Feeding Southwest Virginia, spoke about his personal experience with food insecurity and how it motivated him to make a change. Now, he is able to support Feeding Southwest Virginia’s hunger-fighting work, which includes providing hot meals to hundreds of people each day. His message was simple: "It takes a village." Robert encouraged everyone to get involved in on-the-ground solutions to make a real difference in addressing hunger. 

Donta Rose

Owner, sharswood grocery outlet

Donta Rose, the owner of Sharswood Grocery Outlet in Philadelphia, was the star of the show. He noticed what needed to be changed in his community, particularly the food desert that it had been experiencing for the past 60 years. He took it upon himself to buy and run the grocery store in Sharswood so he could increase access to fresh produce and groceries for his neighbors. His passion was so infectious that Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, another speaker on the panel, offered him support on the spot. It was truly inspiring to see how one person can make such a big impact in their community, and it was especially interesting to see the ways that passion and energy for a mission can inspire even more connections and collaborations with other partners.

Mar Mar Lin

Foodshare Advocate, hunger task force

Mar Mar Lin, a FoodShare Advocate at Hunger Task Force, was the final panelist who truly stood out to me. She spoke about the importance of connecting with the community you are working with, especially in vulnerable communities like refugee and immigrant communities. Mar Mar focuses on ensuring that food banks offer culturally appropriate food and that resources are communicated in a way that builds trust with community members. She was an essential voice on the panel, and as an immigrant myself, I was thrilled to see her there and hear her story.

“ The U.S. government should focus on catalyzing action by bringing local changemakers to the decision table and fostering a collaborative environment, and local leaders should have the support of the public and private sectors to be the decision-makers in their community. ”

— Daniella Passariello

Attending the White House Challenge event left me feeling motivated and empowered. It made me realize that grassroots movements are what will get the job done, which requires collaboration with the public and private sectors to create real change. The U.S. government should focus on catalyzing action by bringing local changemakers to the decision table and fostering a collaborative environment, and local leaders should have the support of the public and private sectors to be the decision-makers in their community.  

As college students, we have the power to make a difference in the fight against hunger and support our communities. As a member of a Food Recovery Network chapter at Georgetown University, I’m a part of the solution. Every day, I work with local partners to recover surplus food, advocate for better food and hunger policies, and spread awareness on how we can tackle food waste and food insecurity. To students aspiring to join the food recovery movement, start or join an FRN chapter on your campus!

FRN student chapter members are community leaders. When we use our voices to push for change, we can have the impact we seek. Together, we can end hunger and build healthy communities.

On Earth Day, recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ familial ties to these lands

The first Earth Day celebration was in 1970. For many people, that Earth Day marked the first time we as a nation came together to give praise to Earth for sustaining our lives. And for many of those same people, Earth Day was thought to have launched the modern environmental movement in the United States: the understanding that human practices are harming our environment and the pursuit to change how we live to be in harmony with the natural world. For me, that is certainly what I was taught and what I believed for a large part of my life.

Yes, Earth Day can be a wonderful celebration and a call to action for us to be more aware of our individual choices and impact on the environment. However, it is imperative that we go beneath this surface so that we can more fully understand the moment in which Earth Day was born. 

Looking back on this moment, we have the opportunity now to understand how Earth Day came to be, beyond the lens of a 1970s celebration that included speeches from individuals from the dominant caste, and plastic balloons and styrofoam cups, and exchanging money to actually put on the celebration. We can also better interrogate the legacy of Earth Day, born under a capitalist structure that therefore requires profitability to function. An example of this legacy is the widespread use of reusable tote bags for grocery shopping. The use of tote bags came from the desire to move away from plastic bags, which are made from petrol, a nonrenewable resource that very rarely is recycled. Tote bags were marketed as a wonderful way to stop our use of plastic bags, or at least reduce our reliance on them. Now, not only are new tote bags given away at events, parties and other gatherings, they are for sale at grocery stores for when you’ve forgotten your own tote at home for as little as $0.99. How many of us are now overrun with tote bags in our homes? Sadly, we would have to use one tote bag 7,100 times to neutralize the carbon footprint from its production, but tote bag production continues though we are overrun with them, and are just as ubiquitous as plastic bags, because it makes money.

Aaron Carapella, a self-taught mapmaker in Warner, Ok. designed this map of Native American tribes before first contact with Europeans. You can learn more about Aaron and purchase his maps here.

It’s also essential to go back in time to understand Earth Day and the modern environmental movement in the US, bringing in a new lens to center the thousands of years of stewardship of the Earth by Indigenous peoples who have always been here and who have always communed with nature as a member of their family. When many of us learned about Earth Day, many voices were intentionally excluded. This time we can relearn with a more inclusive mind, creating a richer, broader history of natural stewardship. This relearning can also promote our own trauma healing and expand and redefine our understanding of how we can truly be in communion with our natural world. We have that opportunity now.

When we look back in history and see who were in positions of power to create and utilize a large-scale platform and to engender action, we see that the environmental movement that sprung from Earth Day was led by a mostly white group of people who were not necessarily attuned with other groups sharing Earth and the United States. The same goes for many large movements in the US: women’s suffrage excluded the voices of Black women, as did the civil rights movement, though Black women were integral to the success of both movements. Those in power to create Earth Day did not seek to include the voices of Indigenous peoples, and their exclusion wasn’t even seen as troublesome at the time. In many ways, this practice of exclusion continues into the present day. Because of this history and practice, and when we look at the function of the modern environmental movement and what Earth Day represents, some people don’t want to be part of this because it doesn’t fulfill its purported purpose of supporting a better relationship with the Earth.

For many of us, we do not understand how the numerous Indigenous peoples' cultures value the Earth in different ways and how spiritually, Indigenous peoples connect to the Earth since the moment they are born. Here is an opportunity! We can further our own understanding given that many of us only learn of Native American history up to about 1900 while in school, and since that learning is often only in the context of the history of European settlers / colonizers who came to the US to start a new life. We may have learned about Earth Day as the beginning of the environmental movement, rather than as the dominant culture’s specific offering of celebration and action. Indigenous people are very much alive in the United States and they continue to hold so much knowledge of our natural world that is intrinsic to them, passed down from generation to generation dating back thousands of years. We can and should incorporate this knowledge into how we understand the Earth and our position in it.

What is so important to know is that we all have a connection to the Earth that dates back thousands of years. We may have been disconnected from that heritage as other cultural norms and stories took over, but the connection is still within us. Personally, I now know that I have Indigenous people as my ancestors, but that is all I know. I do not have passed down stories or ceremonies that connect me to that part of my life. That has been lost over time and it’s often difficult to grapple with knowing I have this within me, but no starting point to connect. I just have to keep learning and connecting in my own ways.

I recommend learning directly from Indigenous communities. First, learning anything from Indigenous communities is a gift, period. But, as it relates to our own understanding of Earth Day, learning about the natural world through their eyes is a gift. Here are a few suggestions on how to start the journey that can last a lifetime. I suggest reading:

1. The Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. This book refocuses how we think about Europeans coming to the United States hundreds of years before the “founding” of the US. Dunbar-Ortiz also offers a list of additional reading.
   
   
   
   

2. The Red Deal by The Red Nation, a collection of Indigenous and non-Indigenous activists. The book argues that Indigenous peoples, Black people, trans people and other marginalized groups did not cause the climate crisis, but if we all come together, we can avert a climate catastrophe. To do so, we must listen to the voices that have been shut out because they hold vital information and knowledge that we must all internalize and use to guide our actions. 

As I often say during workshops and presentations for Food Recovery Network, we are all on a journey of learning and where we are on that journey is different for all of us. If you have suggested readings or access to knowledge that you would like to offer, please do share!