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Tufts Food Rescue Collaborative

by Sara Gomez Garcia on April 14, 2016

Why food rescue?

Every year 40% of food grown for consumption in the United States goes to waste. At the same time, 48.1 million Americans live in food insecure households with women and children experiencing a disproportionate amount of the burden. Unfortunately, for many people living in Somerville, food insecurity is not an abstract concept. Alongside affordable housing, access to affordable, healthy, and culturally appropriate food is among the central issues confronting our host community. University dining halls can serve not only as a platform to educate and engage students with the important issues of hunger and food waste, but can also create system changes to minimize food waste and salvage food that can be used to feed people in need.

 

What is Tufts doing about it?

In 2015 Food for Free, a local NGO that rescues food, in collaboration with Tufts undergraduate students, local school counselors, district level officials, and graduate students from the Friedman School of Nutrition started a Family Meals program using rescued food to provide more than 400 meals every week for homeless families living at the Day St. Hotel in Boston.

This preliminary work paved the way for the formation in March 2016 of the Tufts Food Rescue Collaborative, a partnership beween Tufts Dining, staff/faculty, students and Food For Free to minimize food waste at Tufts while at the same time addresing food insecurity in the local host community. Through this collaborative, Tufts dining has donated over 1500 lbs. of food to Food for Free since January. This food is packaged in ready-to-eat meals that Food for Free delivers to families in need through Food for Free’s Hotel Family Meals program.

 

TFRC partners:

  • Tufts Dining
  • Food for Free
  • Volunteers:
  • Food for Thought
  • GreEco reps
  • ATO
  • Eco Reps
  • Tufts Sustainability Collective
  • Individual volunteers
  • Academic departments/programs:
  • Environmental Studies
  • Community Health

 

How can YOU help?

We are always looking for volunteers to fill 1 hour shifts packaging food between Mon-Sat at Carmichael and DeWick dining halls.

If you are interested in volunteering, email Tufts.FRC@gmail.com.

 

Are you hosting a large event?

If you are hosting a large event (over 30 people) we can make arrangements to rescue your extra food if you contact us in advance.

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