 We are excited to announce Vermont has followed Indiana's lead and became the second state in the U.S to our knowledge to have state education and health departments approve guidelines for the safe donation of unopened, unpeeled, and unwanted food items from the trays of students. These guidelines will open the door for millions of unopened and unpeeled food items to be kept out of landfills in Vermont, and placed into the hands of children and families in need instead. It will also inspire other states like New York, who has a bill that has passed the senate to direct the NY commissioner of Education to construct similar guidelines, as well as many other interested states all over the U.S.
Rhonda Mace, with the Chittenden Solid Waste District contacted Food Rescue in late 2014 for the very first time, and then in 2015 and asked our assistance in collaborating with Vermont stakeholders and others in sharing the process of how Indiana came to adopt these policies, as well as points of emphasis from Indiana's Department of Education and Department of Health. Rhonda gave us permission to post the email sent announcing the program, as well as the guidelines themselves. Notice the cooperation of all involved at the highest level of state government departments in Vermont, as well as others listed. Hi John, Here are Vermont's food rescue documents! They are final and being distributed as I type to all food service staff throughout our state. I want to thank you again for your advice and guidance through this process. It was a collaborative effort, approved and supported by Vermont Agency of Education, Vermont Department of Health, and the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources. Hopefully other states will be encouraged to get something similar started. We are actually part of a panel discussion at the upcoming Reduce and Recover: Save Food for People conference in Boston at the end of June on getting a K-12 food rescue program up and running. Keep up the awesome work! Cheers, Rhonda Chittenden Solid Waste District From: Oakleaf, Bryn Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2016 2:26 PM To: food_service_managers 'FARMTOSCHOOL Cc: Wirsing, Elisabeth Rhonda Mace ; Nicole Civita Subject: Vermont State Agency developed - Share table & Donation Guidance Good Afternoon, Attached are the final versions of the share table and food donation documents for distribution. These two documents have been developed in partnership with Vermont Department of Health (VDH), Agency of Education (AOE), Agency of Agriculture, Agency of Natural Resources (ANR), Chittenden Solid Waste District, Milton Farm to School, and the Vermont Foodbank. This team has drafted the contents of these two documents with assistance from the USDA-FNS, USEPA Region 1, and Food Rescue (Indiana based organization), among other partners. Please reference these documents when initiating share tables in your K-12 schools or are looking to do so within the parameters set out by VDH, AOE, and ANR. For further information about donating surplus food from schools to local food shelves please reference the two page guidance document attached and consider reaching out to the Vermont Foodbank to assess logistics for capturing edible food for charitable distribution. Note that donating food to charitable programs has federal liability protection under the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act. The federal law can be read here: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2010-title42/pdf/USCODE-2010-title42-chap13A-sec1791.pdf. You may know of Vermont's Universal Recycling law (Act 148) and the phased-in landfill bans on food waste. (See the timeline of implementation dates here: http://dec.vermont.gov/sites/dec/files/wmp/SolidWaste/Documents/Universal-Recycling/timeline-factsheet-dec2014.pdf.) Preventing wasted food and capturing edible food before it must be discarded is a way to reduce the amount of material that must be sent to be composted, or other downstream processing options that keep the material out of the landfill. If you have questions about the Universal Recycling law please do not hesitate to contact me or my colleagues at ANR. If you have questions about food safety and handling for share tables or donation please refer to the contact information provided on the attached guidance documents. Thank you, Bryn Oakleaf Environmental Analyst V Waste Management & Prevention Division VT Department of Environmental Conservation
K-12 Food Rescue Student Leader Hanna Wondmagegn's first of many television interviews WSOCTV in Charlotte NC.
 News from Dulcie Holcomb-Thompson, Executive Chef for Chartwells in MSD of Warren Township. Week two: Pilot Hawthorne Elementary: over 1300 food items donated so far. Look for a full guest blog post from Dulcie in the future, outlining not only potential plans to expand K-12 Food Rescue throughout the Warren Central school district, but to Chartwells schools across the nation. These posters are the gold standard for K-12 Food Rescue promotion! Amazing work Chartwells and Warren Central.  In April, New Augusta South Elementary School became the Food Rescue pilot school for Pike Township. The program has been an instant success thanks to an engaged and proactive Food Service Director and staff, a caring Principal and administration and one passionate teacher who took the lead to engage students and get the SLEI (Student Led Entrepreneurial Initiative) up and running. New Augusta South began collecting an astounding 2,600+ items a week--so many Second Helpings had to add a second weekly pickup! Now that food is nourishing those in need in the community instead of feeding a landfill and ultimately harming our environment. It takes amazing teachers like Kristie Wallace to change food waste habits and inspire students to become leaders in the food waste arena. She and her students created a blog for us so you can hear from them first-hand why this is so important. Thank you Ms. Wallace and New Augusta South students and staff! We are amazed at the difference you are making!
The Power of a Question By: Kristie Wallace and New Augusta South Students Six years ago, I posed a simple question to a group of fourth-grade students. How are humans and the environment interdependent? Little did I know that question would spark a tradition at New Augusta South, an elementary school located in MSD of Pike Township. This question sparked a passion in these students to learn about the environment and how to make the earth a “greener” place. Students wanted to share their learning with the school community and they started the New Augusta South Go Green Night. We have been fortunate to have so many community organizations partner with us to bring their message and mission to the students and families and to expose people to ways they can reduce their carbon footprint. This year, I had a new question. As a teacher on perpetual lunch duty, I was disgusted with the amount of food that was wasted. I had heard about the Food Rescue program and suggested this topic to my class. Alonah, Sophia, and Tyonna took this topic and ran with it. Alonah, Sophia and Tyonna’s point of view: When we started studying this topic, we went to different lunches and started to count how much food could be saved instead of thrown away and tallied up those numbers. We came up with a list of questions and our teacher, Ms. Wallace, emailed them to Mr. Williamson at Food Rescue. Jennifer Brilliant responded to our questions. We were picked to be first school in Pike Township to do Food Rescue. Sophia thinks Food Rescue is important because if we didn’t rescue it, it would be wasted and go into landfills Tyonna said,”. "Saving food is a good idea because we can help people who don’t have enough food to eat. The fact that we are helping people and the earth makes us feel proud!" What our students are saying: “It makes me happy to help people.” Gabby, Kindergarten “I feel great that I am helping other people and we don’t have to put food in the trash.” Vanessa, 2nd grade “We do it because some people don’t have food.” London, 3rd grade “It’s not good to waste food.” Paula, 2nd grade “It makes me happy to know some people are getting food and aren’t being hungry.” Olivia, 3rd grade “We’re helping people who don’t have enough food.” Nevaeh, 4th grade All students from kindergarten through 5th grade began participating in this program on April 11th. We rescue food from breakfast, lunch and dinner. Through May 15th, we have rescued an average of 600 items per day with an approximate daily weight of 163 pounds! Students are learning that food is not trash, and they are a vital part of this program. I am so excited that these students are learning at an early age that they can make a difference in their community! Won’t you join us and begin a program at your school? We’d love to help any way we can! |
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