Meet Laura from Drake University!

Laura Leben, President of Drake University's FRN chapter, dresses up as a Compost Sergeant to encourage composting on Drake's campus.

Laura Leben, President of Drake Next Course, saw job posting on campus for a student to start a food recovery program, thought how beautifully the opportunity combined her interests in environmental issues (food waste) with social justice concerns (fighting hunger), and didn't hesitate to apply. One year later, Drake Next Course has recovered over 6,000 pounds of food and raised the second most money for this year's #GivingTuesday #FRNdzy. We're pretty impressed - read more about Laura and Drake University's chapter below.

THE BASICS

Name: Laura Leben

School: Drake University (Des Moines, IA)

Year of Graduation: 2016

Major/area of study: Environmental Science with a minor in Sociology

Position on leadership team: President

WE ASKED LAURA...

Where are you from? St. Charles, IL

How did you get involved in FRN? There was a job posting that Drake’s Community Engagement and Service-Learning Office was offering that was looking for a student to start some sort of food recovery program on campus. I saw how beautifully this opportunity combined my interests in environmental issues (food waste) with social justice concerns (fighting hunger), so I did not hesitate to apply and accept the offer. Sodexo was on board right away.

I built the organization from there, first by partnering with professors and a Freshman Year Seminar course, partnering with the Drake Environmental Action League (a student organization), then creating a club of volunteers devoted to food recovery, called Next Course, and then finally partnering with the national Food Recovery Network for even more support.

Can you share a favorite FRN memory? A few months ago, Next Course hosted Ben Simon, one of the original FRN founders and former executive director, to come to Drake and give a talk about his experiences working with these issues. It was great to gather so many people together to talk about the realities of food waste and gave us a lot of momentum and inspiration to keep going. (Thanks, Ben!)

What's one thing you love about Drake University? Drake is a great space where anything is possible. It was easy to start a new organization and rally support from other students around the issues. There are a lot of great, positive people here and I really enjoy doing what I do as a result.

What are your ambitions post-graduation? I am graduating in May, so I am currently looking for jobs in the field of environmental science, specifically in restoration ecology and conservation of native species and native land.

What other organizations are you involved in? I am also a member of the Drake Environmental Action League (DEAL) where we work hard to promote sustainability on campus with various initiatives. This year, DEAL is working to plant native species around campus to create habitat for native pollinators, increase recycling awareness, build up and strengthen our composting programs on campus, divest from fossil fuels, look into installing solar panels and install electric and heat metering on the buildings on campus.

Interested in learning more about Drake University's chapter? Check them out here and on Facebook and Twitter.

Watch: Food Recovery Network talks hunger on 11 TV Hill

FRN Member Support Fellow talks with 11 TV Hill host Jason Newton about FRN's work in the Baltimore community.

This past November, Food Recovery Network was given the opportunity to share their Baltimore-area efforts on WBAL-TV's 11 TV Hill. FRN's Hannah Gingerich sat down with host Jason Newton to talk about the active FRN chapters in the area -- University of Maryland Baltimore County, Goucher College, and Towson University -- and about the role of FRN in the Baltimore community.

As Newton and the show's guests discussed, ending hunger and homelessness are priorities in the Baltimore community. Hannah shared how the Baltimore-area FRN chapters have worked creatively to contribute to the solutions to these issues. Since their founding, UMBC, Goucher College, and Towson University's chapters have donated over 4,000 pounds to local non-profits within the city, including Project PLASE and Helping Up Mission. 

Hannah highlighted a second way the FRN has helped fight hunger and homelessness in the Baltimore community, speaking to our role in growing local leaders. When asked about the experience of working with FRN chapter leaders, she explained  "It's a really positive feeling...we get to hear from those college students who had just started thinking about those issues...after a three or six month time working with FRN, they suddenly had become leaders on these issues in their community. I think that is what's really important, because a lot of them graduate and take this experience and turn it into a career. It's really helping to bridge the gap between these colleges and universities and the communities that host them, which is often something that is really needed."

To hear more about FRN's work in the Baltimore area, watch Hannah's full interview here.

Fighting Hunger and Homelessness in West Virginia

Each year, the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness co-sponsor National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. Throughout the week, individuals and communities across the country work to bring greater awareness to the issues of hunger and homelessness. This year, our FRNds at West Virginia University went above and beyond to cultivate this awareness in their community, hosting a week of events on WVU's campus in Morgantown, West Virginia. 

FRN at West Virginia University began the week by hosting a presentation with local middle school students. They partnered with the STEMists team at Suncrest Middle School in Morgantown; as part of the First Lego League Challenge, the middle schoolers were tasked with combining their focus on Lego robotics with sustainability. They chose to focus on food, creating a plan to build a garden and compost system at their school. The students also offered to help FRN at West Virginia University recover more food by providing them transportation. With a great turnout from the students, parents, and officials from Suncrest, Monday's event was an all-around success!

Middle schoolers in Morgantown, West Virginia, give a presentation on waste as part of FRN at West Virginia University's National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week event series.

They continued the week by hosting a panel event on Tuesday. Titled "Hunger: The Cost in Your Community", the panel included Zacary Tardiff, the director of Empty Bowls Monongalia County, an organization that operates fundraisers to provide grants to local food assistance programs; Alison Peck of WVU College of Law, a specialist in food and agricultural law; Kandi Shafer, the regional director of Catholic Charities WV; John Sonneday, the director of the Coordinating Council on Homelessness; and Melissa Hernandez, a representative from FRN at West Virginia University.

FRN at West Virginia University hosted the panel discussion "Hunger: The Cost in Your Community", bringing together multiple voices in their community to help raise awareness on the issues of hunger and homelessness.

Wednesday brought food safety to the forefront, as the chapter members participated in Monongalia County's official food safety training. FRN at West Virginia University followed the training on Thursday with a screening of Just Eat It, a documentary on food waste and food rescue. 

Hilary Kinney, one of the leaders of FRN at West Virginia University, reflected on the week of events stating, "All in all, I think it was a successful week...I think the best event of the week was the panel. It brought together individuals from very different backgrounds who are all interested in ending hunger and/or homelessness in our area. "

Hilary, one of the leaders of WVU's chapter, with Monday's panel speakers (from left: Hilary Kinney, Melissa Hernandez, Zacary Tardiff, John Sonneday, and Kandi Shafer.

A huge congratulations to FRN at West Virginia University for what was most definitely a successful week! To read more about their efforts surrounding National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, check out this article. To find out more about FRN at West Virginia University's work, check out their chapter page and follow them on Facebook.

National Hunger & Homesslessness Awareness Week took place this year on November 14-22. To learn more and find out how you can be a part of next year's events, click here.

The #GivingTuesday #FRNdzy results are in!

The FRN National team celebrates raising nearly $13,000 through the 2015 #GIvingTuesday #FRNdzy.

To our wonderful FRNds and supporters:

A month ago yesterday, we embarked on an ambitious fundraising campaign to support our efforts to bring Food Recovery Network to all 50 states and recover the next million pounds of food that would otherwise be wasted.

Yesterday, we celebrated #GivingTuesday, a global day of giving and the apex of our month-long #FRNdzy fundraiser. 

Today, we are awed of the outpouring of contributions from supporters like you -- active members of communities nationwide, who want to make food recovery the norm rather than the exception.

Thanks to you, we raised nearly $13,000 to help us work toward our goals.

With $13,000, Food Recovery Network can recover 13,000 meals! That’s enough to feed a family of four for three years. 

We are so grateful for the generous support of our donors and our awesome student leaders who help us channel these resources into impact.

The Real Cost of Food

Jamie, Sara, Erin, and Leyla stop for a photo at the "The Real Cost of Food" at American University.

What if you went to your favorite fast food chain for a hamburger and the price you paid included the cost of treating Americans for heart disease, the cost of environmental restoration from manure runoff at factory farms, and compensation to workers injured in slaughterhouses? The chances of that burger making it on a dollar menu are pretty slim.

The concept of assigning value to the social, environmental, and health impacts of producing food is called True Cost Accounting. Three other member of FRN's national staff and I were lucky enough to attend a special event hosted by Food Tank called “The Real Cost of Food”, which explored this concept. Held at American University, the session consisted of two keynote speakers and a panel of experts in the food and agriculture industry.

They spoke about agriculture in the United States in terms of everything from food waste to eating local versus organic to climate change to animal welfare and beyond. While each statement felt more powerful and thought-provoking than the last, two speakers shared ideas that really stood out. 

The first came from Barbara Ekwall of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, who spoke about food waste. Ekwall used a powerful analogy to help the audience understand how significantly the issue of food waste affects the planet.

If food waste were a country…
It would be the largest user of irrigated water.
It would be the second largest country after the Russian Federation.
It would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
It could feed two billion people.

Wow.

The second idea that really stuck with us came from Paul Shapiro, Vice President of Farm Animal Protection at The Humane Society of the United States. Shapiro spoke about the horrors of factory farming and how concentrated animal feeding operations have engaged in a “moral race to the bottom”, choosing mass production over animal welfare. Unfortunately, animals are not the only ones that suffer from the cruel practices that allow for the vast amount of meat that Americans consume each year. Human health and the health of our environment are also largely impacted.

One quote from Shapiro summed up his stance and provided an important takeaway for the entire event:

“Eating is a moral act. We can choose foods that help us or we can choose foods that hurt us.”

So next time you are at the grocery store, please take a moment to consider the implications of the food you buy. If we as consumers increase the demand for fruits and vegetables and other healthy foods that are grown and processed in an ethical fashion, we will be met with a greater supply of those foods. In that way, each of us can help positively influence the agricultural industry, one meal at a time.

A huge thanks to Food Tank, the Union of Concerned Scientists, GRACE Communications Foundation, and American University for putting on this event! To find out more about the real cost of food, check out the report that inspired this event.