 Madeline Swain, a 6th grade student at Lafayette Middle School in Oxford, Mississippi, always felt sad watching kids toss unused food into the trash in her school cafeteria. When she was in the 4th grade, Madeline wrote and illustrated a short story about her concern, after discovering Food Rescue's resources online. Titled “Lily’s Apple,” her book tells the story of a girl who suddenly faces food insecurity and helps her teachers start a food rescue program in her school cafeteria. After the story won a first-place award in the 2016 Mississippi Public Broadcasting writing contest, Madeline’s school principal Thomas Tillman tried the food-rescue experiment described in “Lily’s Apple.” He set out a box in the cafeteria for kids to drop off fruits and vegetables. Recently Madeline was named the state student director for Mississippi. She hopes to leverage the book, to help convince school leaders to adopt K-12 Food Rescue policies. She wants to inspire other students to follow her lead all over the country. “Some people think throwing away food isn't a big deal,” Madeline said. “Our cafeteria is one of many places I see food thrown away all the time. It feels wrong to me, especially when so many kids in Mississippi don’t have enough to eat.” People are often shocked to discover that Food Rescue does not have a warehouse of food to manage, or that we do not manage volunteers, or that we are not a food bank of some sort. To some it just doesn't make sense. But we believe nothing makes more sense than "mining" for student leaders via marketing, and then giving them tools to change their world, and asking them one thought provoking question. What is more powerful than the voice of a passionate inspired student leader?             How K-12 Food Rescue is Meeting Unexpected Needs It’s lunchtime at Wheeler Mission’s Women and Children’s Shelter and every seat in the dining room is taken. “We normally feed around 40 people during lunchtime in the summer but lately we are feeding closer to 70”, says Shelter Chef Sam Brown. “These are the kind of numbers we see during the winter, never the summer”, he added. While it’s not clear why so many families are showing up in need of a meal, Wheeler Mission is grateful for a steady supply of healthy food thanks to their partnership with K-12 Food Rescue. Wheeler Mission is picking up weekly donations from an elementary school in Pike Township where leaders decided to continue to donate their unopened, unpeeled, unwanted food during the summer months. “Chartwells of Pike Township Schools is so grateful to continue our partnership with Food Rescue and Wheeler Mission throughout the summer months. We recognize that taking care of our planet and helping our community is not a part time job”, said Pike Township Dietician Julia Engle. “It is crucial to teach our children the importance of reducing food waste and helping our community so that they can continue these practices throughout their schooling and beyond”, Engle added. Unexpected Blessings During the school year, eight Pike Township schools participate in K-12 Food Rescue, with donations going to various caring agencies including Wheeler Mission. The donations are helping immensely but it is the summer donations that are really proving to be a blessing in disguise during what could have been a crisis for the homeless shelter. “Approximately 75% of our food is donated so when we have unexpected spikes we often have to purchase that food out of our tight budget to fill the gap. The food we are receiving from Food Rescue summer servings has saved us from taking a hit financially right now”, Brown said. One Size Doesn’t Always Fit All Another challenge Wheeler Mission is facing is having the right kind of food to feed children. The healthy, single serve items coming out of the school cafeteria fits the bill perfectly. “We are seeing families with no food to sustain them in between our traditional meal times.“, Brown said. “The food provided by Food Rescue allows us to hand a mom a milk and a few snacks to hold the kids over until they can come back for another meal.”, He added. Brown says he values the partnership with K-12 Food Rescue and looks forward to the relationship growing in the years to come. “At the end of the day, this partnership helps us fulfill our mission to feed our neighbors. Knowing it is also helping children learn about food waste and humanity as well is just a win-win for everyone.”  Pike Township students help as Wheeler Mission picks up a weekly donation.
Hanna Wondmagegn, Food Rescue National Director of Student Leadership, receiving her certificate of recognition from Food Rescue from Mr. Parker, HS principal from Charlotte East Mecklenburg HS.
Food Rescue is honored to have you as our National Student Leader. Food Rescue recognized 139 students around the country for their leadership in the #foodisnottrash movement in schools, and we will be posting them as they come in! Congrats to Hanna! We love your passion!  By-Mary Nolan: Deer Run Teacher At Deer Run, we were noticing how much unopened milk and uneaten fruit, particularly, was just being tossed into the trash. We had questions as to how and why this could happen. It seemed ridiculous and, frankly, immoral. I began to do some research on how we could rescue food. First, I began collecting just the milk and fruit from one or two lunch periods, taking it home and storing it in a cooler to take to Second Helpings (my daughters were the transporters). Then, it quickly became clear that this was not a sustainable system because there was SO much that could be rescued. Help for an Overflowing Problem I started looking around and found Food Rescue. I got an immediate response and a meeting with the K-12 Food Rescue Program Director who answered questions and paired us up with a caring agency who picks up our food directly from the cafeteria. Feeding Families Not Landfills We are now a full food rescue school, with students collecting the left over breakfast foods and everyone using our Share Table at lunchtime.They are learning food has value and instead of piling the dumpster we are feeding families in need. We are doing more to help protect our environment. The only regret is that we didn’t begin at the beginning of this school year. Looking forward, we are ready for the upcoming year, with everything in place and the culture of rescue developed. This is what education should be. To learn how you can bring K-12 Food Rescue to your school: click here.
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