This spring, we have big aspirations to break our record for the most food recovered through end of semester food drives and other food recovery initiatives! Will you help us recover #30KinMay - 30,000 pounds of surplus food in the month of May, that is?
Your chapter can join us in meeting our goal by:
Hosting an end of semester food drive. Compete with other chapters to collect the greatest number of pounds of food through your end of semester food drive, and your chapter could win a prize basket!
Coordinating with campus catering to recover food from graduation and other year-end events;
Partnering with your campus dining provider to recover food as they clear out their refrigerators before closing for summer break
Read on to learn more about how you and your chapter can participate in different initiatives!
Host an End of Semester Food Drive
Last week, we had the pleasure of hosting a conversation with Rabiul Rafi, president of our chapter at University of Delaware, and Lisa Zuiderveen, a member of the leadership team of our chapter at Kansas State University. FRN at KSU organized two end of semester food drives in the past year, and FRN at UD has organized end of semester food drives since 2018 and recovered a total of more than 1,400 pounds of food from them!
During the call, we walked through the basic steps involved in organizing an end of semester food drive:
Obtain permission from campus residence hall leadership to run this event
Choose a date (or dates) to host the food drive
Acquire and place donation collection bins in easily accessible locations
Market the event for maximum participation
Confirm the transportation needed to deliver donations to your nonprofit partner
Weigh all recovered food and report the weight (in pounds) to FRN National
Rabiul and Lisa also shared their top tips for planning a successful end of semester food drive. Both agreed that intensive promotion to students on campus is essential, and Rabiul shared one of FRN at University of Delaware’s secrets to success: the chapter tells resident advisers about the event, who then pass on the information to their residents. The panelists also stressed the importance of planning the details of volunteer involvement well in advance: it’s important to have enough volunteers to sort and transport donations, especially if your school is a similar size to University of Delaware, which has 20 residence halls!
End of semester food drives can have a big impact on your community, on and off campus. Lisa shared that organizing these events has helped her chapter increase awareness of food waste and the chapter’s work on campus. Plus, Lisa and her chapter donated nonperishable food gathered through these events to the on-campus food pantry at Kansas State University (which is unable to accept the prepared food that the chapter typically recovers), which has created a wonderful new relationship for the chapter.
Watch the full recording of our conversation to learn the nitty-gritty details of how to organize a successful event, from how to manage volunteers to which day of finals week you can expect to yield the most donations!
Campus Catering and Refrigerator Cleanouts
There is potential for a huge amount of food waste on campus at the end of the semester. Graduation season means that there will be plenty of catered events on campuses. Plus, no matter how well dining staff plan, the cafeteria on campus will most likely end up with extra food left in storage after students move out. What better time than now to start a partnership with your campus catering department or to arrange a refrigerator cleanout with your food donor?
To help you start the conversation, we drafted some template emails that you can use for outreach to catering or other food donors. Plus, we’re excited to announce that any schools that participate in catering food recoveries or refrigerator cleanouts can receive a FREE year of Food Recovery Verification!
If you have any questions, send us an email at programs@foodrecoverynetwork.org. You can find more resources for 30K in May initiatives on our website. We can’t wait to see the impact that our network has on food waste and hunger this spring!