I’m excited to announce that Olin is launching its own chapter of the Food Recovery Network.
Over the past two semesters, we’ve been working to file permits and sign agreements to organize food collection from Sodexo to Framingham’s Salvation Army.
You might wonder what the Food Recovery Network is; We’re the largest student movement against food waste and hunger in America. FRN was founded by 3 students at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2011. During the Spring 2012 semester, the second FRN chapter was founded at Brown University, University of California, Berkeley, and Pomona College. May 2013, FRN gained funding to hire a full-time staff and transition to a professional nonprofit. There are currently 153 chapters across 37 states that have gathered a cumulative total of 944,224 pounds of food since 2011.
We’re going to be the 154th chapter after our second recovery this Wednesday, November 4th. So far, we recover every second Wednesday from our dining hall and have recovered about 28 pounds of food. We’re going to keep recovering with Sodexo here at Olin, and once we establish we’re going to look for additional partner organizations who will work with us to recover food. We’ve built up a great leadership team with Manik Sethi (Salvation Army Main Contact), Anisha Nakagawa (Sodexo and Grow Contact), Aaron Greiner (Sodexo and Grow Contact), Isaac Vandor (Volunteer Coordination), and me, Mackenzie Frackleton (Lead Coordinator).
If you ever want to help out as a volunteer, suggest a new venue for recovering food, or even start a chapter with another school, email us and let’s make something happen!