Elementary students helping fight hunger with food rescue

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) - Elementary students at Farrington Grove are doing their part in helping feed the hungry by saving food and drinks that previously might have been thrown away.

As the site of the Wabash Valley Food Rescue's pilot program, Farrington Grove has saved 21,584 food items during the 2017-2018 school year. Those items include unopened cafeteria food, drinks, fruit and vegetables.

Allison Finzel, founder of the Wabash Valley Food Rescue program, said the 21,584 items "rescued" is the equivalent of more than 5,000 meals for local soup kitchens and pantries.

"Seeing all that food thrown away was making me sick," Finzel said of her desire to start the program. "I couldn't stand seeing it all go to waste."

Finzel used Indianapolis-based K-12 Food Rescue program as a model and its founder, John Williamson, as inspiration and a mentor.

She said the idea is simple. Students are required to pick out a fruit, vegetable and drink as part of their lunch each day, some of which the kids don't like, Finzel said.

So instead of offering no other recourse but a trash can, a sharing table was established. Whatever food or drink students don't eat or open is put on the sharing table for other students to pick through.

What's left on the sharing table after the day's lunch periods is then put in crates and set aside by members of the Farrington Grove student council for a pair of volunteers to pick up each Wednesday and Friday.

The 21,584 food items rescued only counts what was picked up from the school and does not include what students picked off the sharing table.

"I was wearing my shirt today that said food is not trash and a student asked me what that meant," said Michelle Jahn, a second-grade teacher at Farrington Grove. "I told them to think about the extra milk and fruit they can get now and how just last year that would have been in the trash.

"Last year students just dumped their trays at the end of lunch, and it was ridiculous to see the amount of milk, bananas and all this fruit that was going right in the trash."

The program has been so successful that Finzel has received permission to expand the program to all of Vigo County's schools.

"We've already done soft roll-outs at Lost Creek, Sugar Creek Consolidated and Davis Park elementaries," Finzel said. "And those will be the ones we start with in the fall and go on from there."

Larry and Julie Agee distribute food saved by the program to local soup kitchens like those at St. Patrick Church, St. Benedict's, Lighthouse Mission, Freebirds and the 14th and Chestnut after school program.

Larry Agee said it can be hard to understand what 21,584 food items looks like so he often breaks it down for those who ask.

"We try to explain to people how much food is being saved from the landfill but when people hear 21,000 that's a big number that's hard to comprehend," Larry Agee said. "So I try to catch them by surprise sometimes by explaining that we get more than 200 items every pickup. And that can be anything from cartons of milk, fruit cups and fruit to sometimes we'll get 10 pounds of Sloppy Joe mix or 10 pounds of mac and cheese."

The Agees said they're glad to volunteer their time to such a worthwhile cause and said they can't wait to see the impact it has as it grows.

"And to think this is just one school out of 18 in the county," Julie Agee said as she explained the good the program can do.

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Source: Tribune-Star

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Information from: Tribune-Star, http://www.tribstar.com