Food Recovery Network
Carlene Tuttle founded the Indiana State University chapter of the Food Recovery Network in fall semester 2013.
“My motivation stems from the fact that my family struggled with this very problem when I was younger,” said Tuttle. “I was on the other end, part of the statistic of 1 in 5 children who were food insecure.”
Now that she is older, she sees how she can give back to the community as it did to her once she was younger. Advocating for the issue and educating others about food recovery is something she thinks she done well. On the other hand, collecting more data and getting more students and staff involved is something that did not happen.
Since then, getting students to be involved has been a struggle. If the group has more members they would possibly be able to start recovering. Also, they would be able to educate more, have more fundraisers, get their name out there, and volunteer more on a regular basis.
The formal meetings of the board are abandoned for the convenience of email. Of 16 members, only about five show up to events regularly. Of those five, the two most active will leave in the fall.
“Luckily for Terre Haute we have a great sustainability/recovery focused community that the school already does this project themselves,” says Tuttle. However, this is unlucky for us because we have to look off campus.”
For FRN organizations, it is required that they recover at least once a week.
Food Recovery Network (FRN) is a national organization that is becoming popular with colleges across the country. According to FRN, in 2011 students at the University of Maryland came together and decided to volunteer one night a week recovering food from dining halls. It was not until 2012 however until FRN became official across campuses and really took off in the following year.
Carlene Tuttle founded the ISU FRN chapter in late 2013 to early 2014. She is currently the president. The group meets in a small room every Monday evening. As the semester pass by, FRN is becoming bigger and bigger but still lacks the numbers it could potentially have from ISU students. There are about 16 total members but this semester there are only eight active this semester.
Typically FRN would request from the dining halls on the ISU campus to allow the group to take the left over or unserved food and donate it to a local, such as Catholic Charities, but they had some setbacks that they tried to overcome over the years, but just could not. One of the main problems was the group was trying to do too much while there was too much push back. The term push back is used in this context because typically an FRN chapter would recover from their university and call it good.
“ISU has a partnership with Catholic Charities to which they come and pick up food which is great,” said Tuttle. “However, we tried to help out and get involved with them and they weren’t keen on the idea.”
The next step was to go out into the community and find restaurants. There are many restaurants who do not wish to participate due to liability issues and there are others that say they cannot due to corporation rules.
“The group has bins to transport the food rather than relying on the dining hall to supply them. The bins can be disposable or reusable,” says Tuttle. “The disposable are cheaper so new chapters use those but the reusable ones are nice because it’s better for the environment.”
Food recovery is about seeing the good in in a potentially bad situation. FRN is collecting materials that are still edible, but cannot be served in major places again, such as the dining hall. Local charities get this food because they will be able to use it quickly and transform it into something healthy for those around the community.
“Other places like Baeslers Market already donate their goods,” said Tuttle. “It’s very difficult to get into the community when you can’t even take part on your own campus.”
According to FRN, the problem is that there is over 68 billion pounds of food wasted every year. In the same year: 43.6 million Americans struggle with hunger every year, or one in seven Americans. Food Recovery Network has came up with a solution by reducing food waste and providing for our neighbors makes each community that FRN operates in stronger and more supportive. It also helps the environment by helping to close the loop on food waste, America’s second largest waste stream.
“Any food we recover has to fall under certain guidelines and we basically have a total of two hours to transport it from the pickup to the drop off. Students are in charge of transportation as well,” says Tuttle. “This helps both parties as it reduces the amount of trash the school throws out (which they usually pay for because there is such a large amount that’s disposed) and it helps the community or shelter.”
Food safety is the main concern with FRN. Each individual in the group must complete a food safety training before being able to go on recoveries.
According to Tuttle, if the chapter chooses to recover food from a restaurant off campus, they follow the same guidelines but it is trickier due to corporate rules. Both the chapter and the restaurant are covered by the Good Samaritan Law so nothing can come back on either party if something were to happen (like someone getting sick). The service is also tax deductible. FRN also has a certificate that awards and recognizes restaurants and their efforts to help their community and be sustainable.
Over the course of the next semester Tuttle plans on offering advice to new incoming members. She will be graduating in December so she feels the importance to set an example and help focus the group a little more on issues regarding sustainability and food.
Since FRN is not currently recovering, but they participated in Earth Day which took place on the ISU campus near the Lincoln Quads, Wednesday, April 15, 2015.
