An Open Letter to School Administrators
| open_letter_to_schools.pdf |
Dear School Administrator,
Thanks for taking the time to consider K-12 Food Rescue in your school district. As the Executive Director of Food Rescue, I wanted to forward you some information about school food recovery as you consider allowing students to end the practice of "landfill feeding" with unopened and unpeeled food from their trays, a practice that leads to 1 billion food items being fed to landfills annually from American schools.
Thanks for taking the time to consider K-12 Food Rescue in your school district. As the Executive Director of Food Rescue, I wanted to forward you some information about school food recovery as you consider allowing students to end the practice of "landfill feeding" with unopened and unpeeled food from their trays, a practice that leads to 1 billion food items being fed to landfills annually from American schools.
Student Leaders Tell Us
#FoodIsNotTrash
1) The Richard Russell National School Lunch Act was amended to encourage school food recovery in November of 2011. With that amendment, the protections provided by the 1996 Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act have been clarified to include K-12 Schools. PDF files can be found at both links to include in presentations.
2) The USDA supports the safe donation of unopened and unpeeled food items from the trays of students that they choose not to eat for any particular reason when following food safety guidelines.
3) The USDA has written guidelines in PDF form for K-12 Food Rescue, seen in chapter 3 of the School Food Waste Policy History link. The Indiana State Department of Health and Indiana Department of Education wrote the first state guidelines seen in Chapter 2 of the same link.
4) Over 1000 K-12 Food Rescue Schools or school districts have made over 43 million rescued food item entries on Food Rescue's Live Impact Dashboard since our free tracking tool was introduced in July of 2016. Some schools where there is 100% free and reduced breakfast and lunch have recorded 500 items per day rescued. High school students generally waste the least, while elementary school students generally waste the most.
5) Dairy products are pasteurized, and this Harvard study emphasizes the safety of donating these temperature controlled for safety (TCS) products using proper guidelines and the myths often associated with their expiration.
6) Rotting food in landfills produces methane gas that is 21 times more harmful to the environment than C02. K-12 Food Rescue is a food waste diversion program as promoted to students. While the donation piece is the obvious avenue used to keep the food out of the landfill. Kids are not encouraged to donate food, rather be good stewards of the environment by not feeding landfills. If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest producer of methane in the world. To view the impact of rotting food in landfills according to many scientists, we created an animated drawing video as a teacher resource which can be seen here.
7) 40% of food produced in the U.S. is wasted, including 1 billion food items annually from U.S. schools, while 50 million Americans are food insecure. If no families were food insecure, the careless destruction of nutritious food in our schools would be unwise for environmental reasons. However, with 50 million food insecure Americans, perhaps there is an even darker adjective than "unwise" to describe this careless practice.
8) The USDA Secretary announced in September of 2015 nationwide food waste reduction goals aiming to reduce food waste by 50% by the year 2030. In order to meet this goal, our schools must play a vital if not leading role in a national action plan.
9) Schools teach children that food has nutritional value, and K-12 Food Rescue practices augment that message, rather than erode it. Why would we ever want to send a message to students that food is trash?
10) Schools want to teach children to be thankful, yet the thankless process of harming the environment, and ignoring children and families in need is facilitated if not "taught" by allowing students to fill landfills with unopened and unpeeled food items.
In Indiana, we are ending the practice of landfill feeding one school cafeteria at a time. We can end it in every state, and preserve over 1 billion unopened and unpeeled food items annually. K-12 Rescue programs currently keep 3 million food items out of landfills each year in Indiana, and divert them into the hands of agencies that serve children and families in need through caring agencies that faithfully pick up from schools on a regular basis. We look forward to partnering with you in the future.
All K-12 Food Rescue procedures, FAQ's and initial steps can be seen on our Thank You Page.
K-12 Food Rescue programs are a joint cooperative venture between local schools, local food pantries/qualified caring agencies, and local health departments. The entire program and relationship is between these three parties, and Food Rescue has no oversight over any K-12 Food Rescue programs around the country. The success of a K-12 Food Rescue program is dependent upon these three entities working together, rather than separately. One of our first recommended steps is to contact the local health department. Food Rescue shares success stories to inspire the movement, and provide on online tracking mechanism for students to learn about the impact of food waste reduction in their community.
John Williamson
Food Rescue President
Inspiring Student Leaders
[email protected]
Tel: 317-694-4006
2) The USDA supports the safe donation of unopened and unpeeled food items from the trays of students that they choose not to eat for any particular reason when following food safety guidelines.
3) The USDA has written guidelines in PDF form for K-12 Food Rescue, seen in chapter 3 of the School Food Waste Policy History link. The Indiana State Department of Health and Indiana Department of Education wrote the first state guidelines seen in Chapter 2 of the same link.
4) Over 1000 K-12 Food Rescue Schools or school districts have made over 43 million rescued food item entries on Food Rescue's Live Impact Dashboard since our free tracking tool was introduced in July of 2016. Some schools where there is 100% free and reduced breakfast and lunch have recorded 500 items per day rescued. High school students generally waste the least, while elementary school students generally waste the most.
5) Dairy products are pasteurized, and this Harvard study emphasizes the safety of donating these temperature controlled for safety (TCS) products using proper guidelines and the myths often associated with their expiration.
6) Rotting food in landfills produces methane gas that is 21 times more harmful to the environment than C02. K-12 Food Rescue is a food waste diversion program as promoted to students. While the donation piece is the obvious avenue used to keep the food out of the landfill. Kids are not encouraged to donate food, rather be good stewards of the environment by not feeding landfills. If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest producer of methane in the world. To view the impact of rotting food in landfills according to many scientists, we created an animated drawing video as a teacher resource which can be seen here.
7) 40% of food produced in the U.S. is wasted, including 1 billion food items annually from U.S. schools, while 50 million Americans are food insecure. If no families were food insecure, the careless destruction of nutritious food in our schools would be unwise for environmental reasons. However, with 50 million food insecure Americans, perhaps there is an even darker adjective than "unwise" to describe this careless practice.
8) The USDA Secretary announced in September of 2015 nationwide food waste reduction goals aiming to reduce food waste by 50% by the year 2030. In order to meet this goal, our schools must play a vital if not leading role in a national action plan.
9) Schools teach children that food has nutritional value, and K-12 Food Rescue practices augment that message, rather than erode it. Why would we ever want to send a message to students that food is trash?
10) Schools want to teach children to be thankful, yet the thankless process of harming the environment, and ignoring children and families in need is facilitated if not "taught" by allowing students to fill landfills with unopened and unpeeled food items.
In Indiana, we are ending the practice of landfill feeding one school cafeteria at a time. We can end it in every state, and preserve over 1 billion unopened and unpeeled food items annually. K-12 Rescue programs currently keep 3 million food items out of landfills each year in Indiana, and divert them into the hands of agencies that serve children and families in need through caring agencies that faithfully pick up from schools on a regular basis. We look forward to partnering with you in the future.
All K-12 Food Rescue procedures, FAQ's and initial steps can be seen on our Thank You Page.
K-12 Food Rescue programs are a joint cooperative venture between local schools, local food pantries/qualified caring agencies, and local health departments. The entire program and relationship is between these three parties, and Food Rescue has no oversight over any K-12 Food Rescue programs around the country. The success of a K-12 Food Rescue program is dependent upon these three entities working together, rather than separately. One of our first recommended steps is to contact the local health department. Food Rescue shares success stories to inspire the movement, and provide on online tracking mechanism for students to learn about the impact of food waste reduction in their community.
John Williamson
Food Rescue President
Inspiring Student Leaders
[email protected]
Tel: 317-694-4006
Video Of Entire Open Letter To School Administrators
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