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Indiana

Indiana paves the way by writing the first guidelines for food rescue in our schools.

In early 2015, after Laura Hormuth of the Indiana State Department of Health heard a keynote message from Food Rescue at The Indiana State Nutrition Association annual conference, she asked to meet and discuss our program more in depth, which had reached over 100 Indiana schools to that point. She asked, “what are some barriers?” My response. “The law is clear, albeit unknown, but I can’t find any guidelines anywhere from any state or federal government specific to schools.” She believed she could get that done. Within a few months of meeting with some representatives from the ISDH and IDOE, the first school food safety guidelines and procedures for share tables and food donations in schools in America were written. A careful Google search finds no information prior to this date, and ever since we have tracked the nation's progress at our History of School Food Waste Policy link.

The USDA followed in 2016 with guidelines for schools similar to Indiana's guidelines, and so far 21 additional states have followed Indiana's lead as the school food waste history link shows.

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OPEN LETTER    |     freetool    |    DONATE 

Our new system has been working for us up here in Alaska. From the first day it was a hit!!!  I was expecting some resistance from teachers who don't care to have food in the classrooms and also problems with garbage on the playground but.....none so far. The high school "hungry boys" love finding the fixings for PB & jelly sandwiches from the K-5 crew. A huge problem, that I cannot fix at this time is the recess timing. It IS after lunch and a LOT of kids will come in and dump their trays just to get outside. Maybe next year.  All in all... it was welcomed as a great idea and the school news crew is going to be doing a section on your program...hopefully before school closes for the summer but if not we will be off to a great start next year. We are out the 27th of this month.  I'm currently working on getting a summer food program started because I know a lot of our kids do not get to eat well at home.  This has only been my 2nd year running the kitchen and I've made MANY changes to our waste problem.  I've been in contact with a member of the Sustainable Southeast group that is working on a partnership with the tribal authority to help run an aquaponics site. Also...UAS in Sitka is doing a study on using recycled cardboard to grow mushrooms!!!!  He is getting me that contact info soon.  I'm soooo excited because mushrooms are seriously my passion!!!  I'm already setting up to grow shiitake and other gourmet (but really medicinal) mushrooms at home using alder that has already been dropped around the island. I'm also going to set up at the school to sell and actually make money with our lunch program. I'm looking forward to working with K-12 Food Rescue your fabulous project and help change the habits of our locals. Please feel free to contact me with any more info you may have or just to check on our progress.
 
Sincerely,

​Tricia Clough
STATE DIRECTOR'S OF STUDENT LEADERSHIP