FRN Shoutouts: WPI, UIC, UVM

In Fall 2020 many FRN chapters faced challenges they had never known before. Some chapters had to find new food donors, others had to recruit additional volunteers virtually and many found recovery alternatives to keep their chapter engaged while remaining socially distant. To start this year off right, we want to highlight three chapters that wowed this past fall semester due to their adaptability, dedication to the mission of FRN, and outstanding leadership.

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) went outside the box for what it means to be a part of this network. Their food donor did not permit them to pick up leftover food due to social distancing guidelines, and their partner agency chose not to accept donations. When met with this obstacle, WPI adapted by finding a new nonprofit partner, Friendly House. They donated non-perishable food items, holiday gifts, and over 200 masks to Friendly House, which is founded on the mission“for the educational, social and family betterment of residents of the City of Worcester.” WPI  also created over 30 different care packages for the homeless that consisted of masks, hand sanitizer, socks, food, and hygiene products!

• The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) continued to recover food during the pandemic. UIC was able to supply the Franciscan Outreach Center with 7,589 lbs of food recovered from an on-campus dining hall and the University of Illinois Health Hospital. Speaking on their success, chapter leader Snehitha Talugula said, “our recovery efforts are endless and we are always looking for ways we can continue to make an impact during these uncertain times.” UIC also organized a Webinar featuring two faculty members as guest speakers talking about issues including Food waste, food insecurity, and the COVID19 pandemic. 

• Being a chapter leader during COVID-19 has certainly been challenging, but Sarah Geller from the University of Vermont (UVM) made supporting her volunteers a priority this Fall. Sarah noted, “As president of the club this semester, I learned that leadership involves a high level of empathy. This semester was not what anyone had been anticipating, so I was very flexible and never pressured anyone into taking on a role they couldn't handle.” Sarah communicated with her leadership team and made sure that they knew that she was there to help.  She got to know members of her chapter more and used her connections with UVM Civic Engagement to get additional supplies. It was this relationship that allowed FRN @ UVM to hold two recoveries aimed at students without cars, as the office of Civic Engagement provided a van for transportation.

Thank you to the chapter leaders and volunteers at UIC, WPI, and UVM for your dedication to the Food Recovery Network’s mission. Your work this past semester has made your community healthier and more secure, and we cannot wait to see what you do in 2021. Happy New Year!

Expanding Chapter Impact

What goes into starting a chapter where you live?

““We were really worried about it [food recovery] coming into COVID-19 because we need to enforce proper guidelines but we also want to continue to reach these homeless shelters that we’ve had relationships with for the last two years.”

— Snehitha Talugula, FRN Chapter President at the University of Illinois Chicago

The FRN chapter at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) exceeded expectations by continuing to recover food from their campus dining hall and the UI Health Hospital during the pandemic. From June-December, 2020 the UIC Chapter recovered and donated more than 8,000 pounds of food to The Franciscan Outreach Center, their partner agency that provides healthy meals and housing to people experiencing homelessness. 

In an interview with FRN, Snehitha Talugula, UIC Chapter President, explained that these dining facilities have larger quantities of excess food now due to the reduced number of people staying in the hospital and living in dorms on campus. She continued, “We really did not want any of that [food] to go to waste, so we’re really glad that we have dedicated volunteers that are prepared to take this food and donate it to our homeless shelter, the Franciscan Outreach Center.”

In addition to maintaining their food recovery program, the UIC Chapter also organized an educational webinar for fellow students and community members to discuss food waste and food security during the pandemic.

“We wanted to keep our members active, but we wanted to respect their wishes to maintain social distancing and quarantine.”

— Snehitha Talugula

Executive team members worked together to identify professors on campus with expertise in urban health, food waste, and food insecurity in Chicago communities to speak on their panel. The webinar was a great success, and the recording is available here. 

When asked about her chapter’s future plans, Snehitha shared, “Our recovery efforts are endless and we are always looking for ways we can continue to make an impact during these uncertain times.” Check out the full interview for more of Snehitha’s inspirational thoughts!

What goes into starting a chapter where you live?

Activating Campus Resources

Sarah Geller and Alex De Luise lead the FRN Chapter at the University of Vermont (UVM), formerly an affiliate of the Campus Kitchens Project. Like many other FRN Chapters, the pandemic created unfavorable circumstances that impacted their food recovery efforts, but by taking things one step at a time, the UVM Chapter managed to safely resume campus food recoveries and increase their volunteer capacity in the process!

What goes into starting a chapter where you live?

Successful campus food recoveries depend heavily on coordination with dining services, volunteer capacity, and transportation capabilities. When the fall semester began, the UVM Chapter started by contacting Marissa Watson, Sodexo’s Sustainability Manager at UVM, who helped them get set up to recover surplus food from different food service locations on campus. Next, the chapter focused on volunteer capacity and access to transportation. 

“The semester was certainly a challenge. We went in not knowing what the outcome would be.”

— Sarah Geller

Pre-pandemic, the UVM Chapter relied on their Leadership Team members with vehicles to transport food donations to their partner agency. However, many of the chapter’s volunteers, including Alex, transitioned to remote learning for the fall semester which made it difficult for the chapter to coordinate food recoveries. To get more people involved, Sarah and Alex contacted Jerome Budomo, Director of Student Life in UVM’s Office of Civic Engagement, who helped them secure access to school vans to support their work.

New transportation capacity allowed more students without personal vehicles to participate in food recovery efforts. In the past, the UVM Chapter could only organize one food recovery per week with two volunteers, one of which had a personal vehicle. In contrast, access to the school van allowed the Chapter to organize two food recoveries per week with teams of five volunteers. 

“The amount of food that we were able to recover not only touches on how much food waste there is but how much opportunity there is to recover food, especially from our campus.”

— Alex De Luise

In an interview with FRN, Sarah commented, “The semester was certainly a challenge. We went in not knowing what the outcome would be. We tried to plan as much as possible but with COVID-19 there’s not much planning you can do.” Despite the challenges, they didn’t give up. Check out our full interview with Sarah and Alex to learn more about their collaborative approach to campus food recovery. 

We asked Sarah, “What is your favorite part of being a chapter member?”

Sarrah replied, “Getting to meet and interact with so many different people from all different backgrounds... People from all over campus from all the different colleges at UVM are involved in the Food Recovery Network because food is universal; food is something that connects everyone. I love that I’ve been able to meet so many different people, including community members.

“It’s opened up a lot of opportunities for me as far as networking and connections, and being able to get involved in the community and feeling like I’m doing something to make an impact.”

— Sarah Geller

“[FRN] It’s not a club that’s truly on campus, we get to be a part of the community...Seeing how a food system can work in your city and not just your college is the best part for me.”

— Alex De Luise

What goes into starting a chapter where you live?

Adjusting to Pandemic Restrictions

Last semester, the pandemic pushed colleges and universities across the country to implement new regulations that would keep their campus communities safe, but these regulations often left Food Recovery Network (FRN) chapters unable to recover surplus food on campus. 

What goes into starting a chapter where you live?

At Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), in-person gatherings were prohibited, making it impossible for our student chapter to organize food recoveries on campus. However, when the WPI chapter realized they couldn’t activate, as usual, they identified new ways, beyond food recovery, to help their partner agency, Friendly House.

The Chapter leadership team set a goal to accomplish 2-3 service projects every eight weeks with Friendly House. Throughout the fall, they coordinated donation drop-offs, including non-perishable foods, masks, and holiday gifts, and they also created children’s goodie bags and care packages for the homeless. 

“Be ready to adapt and don’t let quarantine and pandemic life bog down your perception of what your chapter can do...”

— Hannah Schulz

We spoke with Hannah Schulz, Chapter President, about WPI’s efforts during the pandemic to maintain their partnership with Friendly House. When asked what advice she would offer to students who want to start a new chapter, Schulz replied, “Be ready to adapt and don’t let quarantine and pandemic life bog down your perception of what your chapter can do...Look at all of the options and opportunities in front of you and make the most of it.”

We are inspired by chapter leaders and volunteers like Hannah who continually demonstrate there is no limit to the work we can do to activate in support of our communities. Check out the full interview with Hannah to learn more about WPI Chapter’s work this past fall, and to hear about her vision for a just and equitable food system. 

What goes into starting a chapter where you live?

When asked to describe what a just and equitable food system looks like, Schulz replied, “A just and equitable food system means eliminating the fear of not knowing where your next meal is coming from for everyone, independent of your identity and where you are in life. The key to that is forming these connections and partnerships where we can deliver food and eliminate food insecurity.”

FRN10X and Top 10 States for Expansion

When I came to Food Recovery Network (FRN), a little under a year ago, our Executive Director Regina Anderson shared with me her vision of a network that would grow ten-fold, and a movement that would represent a more just and equitable food system. My job as the first Chief Operating Officer (COO) was to make that happen. To begin, I leveraged the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Results Count Framework.

Results Count® is a data-driven methodology to close racial and ethnic disparities in your work, regardless of focus area. For us at FRN, this meant getting specific about the result we seek in the world and how we will keep ourselves accountable to contributing to make progress on it. For FRN, our result is to recover surplus food to feed everyone who is hungry in the U.S.

While we recognize FRN cannot alone achieve this goal, we identified where FRN can have a unique contribution to moving our movement closer to achieving it. Using two publicly available data sets, the EPA’s excess food map, and Feeding America’s Map, the Meal Gap, on the number of people experiencing hunger, we overlaid these data sets on maps where FRN also has chapters. Looking at the states with BOTH ample opportunities of recovering surplus food and more than 20% of the state’s population experiencing hunger, we prioritized ten states where we believe we can replicate FRN’s structure of recovering surplus food from commercial/industrial settings; and then redistributing it so we can feed more people, where there is the most need, faster.

The states are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. More details on each state can be found below.

It is important to note our support of chapters across the U.S. will continue as will our growth on campuses across the nation because of the dedication of our student leaders who see access to food as a right, and FRN as a way to help people in their community today.

Please join us in expanding our network in each of these states. You can do this by donating to FRN to support our outreach or connecting with program staff to connect us with the appropriate person at your school.