I remember our last national conference, National Food Recovery Dialogue (NFRD), in 2019 so clearly. It wasn’t the fact that we had our national conference in Philadelphia, rather for the first time we hosted the conference in a city outside of Washington DC, which made it memorable. And seeing so many new and familiar student faces absolutely added to my sense of community and belonging. What made the conference so memorable to me, was that for the first time since I started at Food Recovery Network in 2015, and from what I’ve known of our history prior, the reason why students were so drawn to our mission had altered.

What we were hearing from students as to why they wanted to volunteer with FRN took on a clear-eyed and very mature tone that brings tears to my eyes literally every time I think about it. I know, and our surveys of our student leaders conclude that students volunteer with FRN for two very distinct reasons that for FRN are inextricably linked. Our student leaders know that food is a right and that people shouldn’t be without food. Our students also believe that we need to be better stewards of our planet and by recovering precious food instead of throwing it away, we can counteract excessive C02 gas emissions.

During this particular NFRD gathering, our students were talking about the environment in a different way. We heard during interviews and conversations with our student leaders that they've been born into a climate crisis. Unlike me, a child of the 80s where recycling was the bandwagon we younger kids could jump on, and that climate change was maybe something more progressive circles talked about, but it wasn’t really a common phrase to me as a young kid. Our students of today have been born into a climate crisis and there is no denying that. That is stark, and chilling understanding for anyone at any age to grasp and to live within.

But, what makes our students so incredible to me, so inspiring to me to be around, is that our students understand this very stark moment in human history and they still believe they have the opportunity, and dare I say, the responsibility, to do everything they can to keep working toward a better environmental future. They told us time and again during NFRD that volunteering gives them hope. That by giving their time to do the right thing for their communities and the environment, gives them hope within a situation that can feel overwhelmingly big. Our students told us that their actions today can help contribute to a better future, that they are on the right side of a systems change that can positively support a better environment and help their neighbors get the food they deserve.

The average recovery for an FRN chapter takes about 45 minutes, and in that short, productive amount of time, our students interact with other like-minded students, they interact with the dining staff who made the food that might have been destined for the trash had the chapter not been there to respect and value the people making the food, and the precious food itself, and they get off campus to build a relationship with other like-minded people who also volunteer their time at homeless shelters, soup kitchens, afterschool programs and many other critical nonprofit organizations.

In a way, I think of this amazing act of volunteerism as also an act of self-care during difficult times. The work is a hard reminder of the inequities we have built across the country and our students see that first hand. Yet, the very act of recovering food, of putting others first, and knowing you are actively supporting humans and our environment can help us to tether ourselves to hope that we can steer things to a better place. By recovering food we can deepen our belief that when more and more people care the way we do, we will make better choices for our environment and the future of our planet.

What I’ve relayed is the thinking of many of our students across a vast and diverse cultural movement. Our students have a lot to say and I invite you to listen to these leaders and to be involved with us. Our student leaders at Food Recovery Network believe in hope for a better environment and community tomorrow, and as long as they are at work to make this happen at a systems-change level, so will I.