When FRN made a commitment to transparency to share with our stakeholders how we are working towards fulfilling the overall result we seek to see: to recover surplus food to feed everyone who is hungry in the United States, we meant it. We made that commitment exactly one year ago and since then, when we launched our strategic framework, FRN10X, we’ve had three public conversations around our work.

The most recent conversation was a recap of what we’ve learned over the prior year, and importantly sought input from all of our stakeholders on the goals we seek to achieve this following year.

We are proud of what we have accomplished this year, including these notable goals:

The roll out of a new strategic framework, FRN10X, grounded in data and racial equity, to deepen our impact;
Creation of new gleaning programs which recover food from local and commercial farms across the U.S.; and
Expansion of our chapter membership model to include community engagement and advocacy as ways students can serve their communities at a time when it is most needed.

Everyone’s world fundamentally shifted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our students faced so many stressful and downright scary moments during COVID-19. Did they have to leave school? Would they have a hybrid model of on-campus and virtual classes and if so, where would they live if not on campus? And like all of us, they wondered if they would be safe. However, we really must commemorate and celebrate the tenacity of our movement. During all of this uncertainty, our members propelled FRN to recover more food than ever before - more than 1.3 million pounds of food, which lead to 1 million meals being provided to individuals experiencing homelessness, children and youth, unemployed or underemployed individuals, older adults, veterans, people with disabilities, immigrants, and other under-resourced groups experiencing hunger.

We have so much to celebrate and we have detailed our annual accomplishments in our FY21 Annual Report, which we encourage you to read to learn more. And please do share the link with those in your life whom you think might be interested, too.

Fundamental to what we seek to achieve this coming year, we are carrying forward two main learnings from this past year:

Organizational partnerships are key to scaling our impact. In FY22, we seek to establish 2-3 additional collaborations to help better serve communities across the U.S.
Racial/Ethnic disparities continue to widen, making investment in Black and Brown communities critical to feeding those experiencing hunger. In FY22, FRN will commit more time and resources to partnering with local nonprofits across the country to feed people faster, in areas where it is most needed.

FRN blog posts will continue to be a source of learning and sharing to help further the student movement to recover food to feed all who are experiencing hunger in the U.S. while fighting climate change. Please continue to check back to read more about our work, progress, and when you are ready to be involved, or be involved further, please contact us.