Instead of tossing food during school closures, cafeteria makes take-home meals for hungry kids
What happens to food that wasn’t eaten in a school cafeteria at the end of the day?
It gets thrown away.
If the school practices sustainable ways, then they will have a bin for compost. But most schools don’t have compost bins and the uneaten food goes straight to the trash bin.
In fact, schools throw away uneaten and edible food worth around $5 million in the trash every day. 5 MILLION DOLLARS! It’s crazy how much perfectly edible food is being wasted and left to rot.
Why waste so much food?
Most of the time, the food quality available at school cafeterias is problematic plus the food choices are not appetizing. Because of these two major reasons, the students are not exactly excited about finishing all of that food.
And these uneaten food end up in trash bins.
But this school district is different.
They do their best to avoid food waste.
Elkhart Community Schools in Indiana has partnered with Cultivate Culinary to repurpose leftover, uneaten food in the school cafeteria into take-home meals for some students.
“A lot of them are food insecure,” Natalie Bickel, Elkhart Community Schools student services supervisor, said. “They know they’re not going to have a breakfast and a lunch.”
The Elkhart Community School district has always offered breakfast and lunch to their students from Mondays to Fridays.
But during the weekend, there are students who are not very fortunate when it comes to food availability.
“[Before the program started], students were running into school on Monday mornings for breakfast because they hadn’t had a decent meal all weekend,” Madison STEAM Academy Principal Deb Martin said.
With this program, these kids will come in on Monday mornings ready to face a brand new week at school.
“The kids, they look forward to Friday,” Jeremy Bechtel, Woodland Elementary academic dean, said. “They know what’s going to happen. It’s something for them to, kind of carry them through the weekend and bring them back them back to us on Monday, recharged and ready to go.”
Cultivate Culinary would come to the school three times a week to get the leftover edible food so it doesn’t go to waste.
“We take well-prepared food, combine it with other food and make individual frozen meals out if it,” Jim Conklin, Cultivate Culinary President, explained.
And by Friday, twenty chosen students get to go home with a backpack that includes eight frozen meals to last them through the weekend.
This program will run every Friday until school ends.
“Our goal is to feed hungry kids, and we want to see improved school performance, whether it’s academic, behavior, or attendance,” Jim Conklin added. “This backpack program was close to our hearts.”
Parents were so grateful for this backpack program.
“There’s a peace of mind to know there’s something in the fridge,” Angel Null, mother of two chosen students, said.
The program was such a success that the Elkhart Community School district has decided to expand the program to different schools. Five months since they launched the program in one school, they decided to do it in five more schools.
100 students get to go home every Friday knowing they had something to eat because of this program.
“It’s making a big impact,” Melissa Ramey, Chamber Leadership Academy member, beamed. “I am proud of that. It was heartbreaking to hear that children go home on the weekends and that they don’t have anything to eat.”
Learn more about this amazing program by watching the video below.
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