It’s 6:00 am in Flagstaff, AZ on Sunday, February 12, 2023. It’s quiet and cold, around 30 degrees outside, and the sun isn’t up yet, but eight leaders from Food Recovery Network’s (FRN) chapter at Northern Arizona University (NAU) are awake and gearing up to drive down to Glendale, where Super Bowl LVII will take place in 10 hours. 

By 7:00 am, seven students meet their faculty advisor, settle into two cars and while the sun rises, they hit the road to avoid game day traffic on the only two-lane highway down to Glendale. They take a short pitstop at a roadside diner for breakfast and continue the 2 ½ hour drive. By 10:30 am they arrive in Glendale and make their way towards State Farm Stadium. They’ve got their game faces on, but they’re not here for football - they’re here for food recovery. 

Just across the street from State Farm Stadium, Bullseye Event Group hosts their annual Players Tailgate, a premier all-inclusive tailgating experience where guests can enjoy unlimited drinks and bites curated by high-profile chefs from across the country and mingle with current and former NFL players before they watch the big game. In preparation for the event, the culinary team purchased nearly 10,000 pounds of food to be served to guests during the 4-hour event. 

With all events of this size and scale, it’s imperative to have a plan in place to ensure any surplus food is donated. FRN student and faculty leaders understand the urgency and importance of this work, which prompted the NAU chapter to make the trip to Glendale to support FRN staff members with one of our largest food recoveries of the year. 

On a normal school day, the students at NAU work with their faculty advisor, the campus Sustainability Director for Sodexo Dining, to donate perfectly good food that was prepared and never served from the Hot Spot, an all-you-care-to-eat resident dining hall on campus. Since reviving its food recovery program in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NAU chapter has recovered and donated 9,580 pounds of food, equivalent to 7,983 meals, to two local hunger-fighting organizations, the Flagstaff Family Food Center and Sunshine Rescue Mission. FRN staff were delighted to meet the NAU student chapter members and their advisor, who dedicate their time day in and day out to create a more sustainable and equitable food system, in Glendale for our big food recovery. 

Now it’s 1:00pm and the Players Tailgate is heating up, figuratively and literally. The sun is high in the sky, chefs are serving up delectable bites, NFL players are mingling, and suddenly Glendale’s very own Mayor Weiers pays a visit. Here on official business, the Mayor invites FRN’s Executive Director, Regina Anderson, and all NAU chapter volunteers to the stage and officially proclaims Sunday, February 12, 2023, Food Recovery Network Day in Glendale, AZ!  

As the Players Tailgate event comes to an end, football fans migrate to watch the game while FRN staff and our student volunteers suit up for our own game-time kick-off. At 4:30 pm the head chefs give our crew the green light to begin our food recovery work. Swiftly, volunteers organize into an assembly line to move food donations from a refrigerated truck into our vans for delivery to the Phoenix Rescue Mission. Many hands make light work, and within 30 minutes we pack nearly 3,000 pounds of high-quality proteins, seafood, dairy, produce, and condiments into our vehicles. 

Upon arrival at Phoenix Rescue Mission, everyone’s spirits are high. With adrenaline pumping, we quickly unload the food from our vans onto 5 palettes that are immediately placed into freezers. As Phoenix Rescue Mission announces the amount of food donated that evening, our group erupts into cheers. Our mini-celebration is filled with laughter, high-fives, compliments, and thanks all around.  

A successful food recovery of this magnitude depends on the cooperation and collaboration of many people, especially volunteers. The NAU chapter showed up and showed out for this event! They demonstrated their leadership, integrity, patience, and caring - the very essence of what fuels FRN’s food recovery movement. We could not have achieved this success without their participation. On behalf of the full team at FRN, we thank our volunteers for their commitment and support of this food recovery effort and the incredible work they do every day to combat food waste and food insecurity in their community. 

Thank you to our volunteers: Amaya Gooch, Emma Anderson, Fran Alvarado (faculty advisor), Haley Anglin, Jovani Herrera, Karson Hawkins, Kearstin Saxto, and Rachel Lord.