{"id":11932,"date":"2025-02-13T09:15:59","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T15:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=11932"},"modified":"2025-02-13T09:15:59","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T15:15:59","slug":"food-recovery-program-repackages-leftovers-for-hungry-students","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/food-recovery-program-repackages-leftovers-for-hungry-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Food recovery program repackages leftovers for hungry students"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A food recovery program that repackages leftover food from University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire dining services is expanding in spring semester to help feed more students.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The program, piloted in fall 2024, provides repackaged meals to Campus Harvest Food Pantry, where they are frozen and available for free to students. The program is a collaborative effort among the Administrative Office of Sustainability, Student Office of Sustainability, University Centers, Sodexo food services and the Campus Harvest Food Pantry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is good, quality food and our college \u2014 similar to many universities around the country \u2014 have students who face food insecurity,\u201d says Kristen O\u2019Brien, who was a fall semester intern in the Administrative Office of Sustainability and instrumental in starting the program. \u201cWhen students have good, nutritious, free food it helps their wellbeing and their academics because students can\u2019t fully function on an empty stomach.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Student Kristen O\u2019Brien works with John Arnold, head of dining experiences for University Centers, to repackage leftover food at Hilltop Center.<\/em><\/div>\n
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During fall semester, nearly 600 meals, ranging from grilled chicken and beef pot roast to vegetarian lasagna and Mediterranean pasta, were repackaged at Hilltop Center dining services and quickly picked up by Blugolds at the food pantry. The program\u00a0provides another option for students who face food insecurity, says Dr. Sarah Snyder, student assistance manager and Campus Harvest Food Pantry coordinator.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese heat-and-eat meals are very popular among our busy students and they really don\u2019t stay in the freezer long,\u201d Snyder says. \u201cQuick and easy meals are always a request our students have, as they don\u2019t always have the time, supplies or space to cook a meal from scratch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was an entirely student-led initiative and I\u2019m so proud of our students for their creative thinking and dedication to the environment and their peers.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien, a third-year ecology and environmental biology major from Foley, Minnesota, says the food recovery program is patterned after a similar operation at UW-Madison. Food that is prepared for the Hilltop Center dining but is not placed in the buffet is repackaged for Blugolds who may not have adequate food to eat.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien and John Arnold, head of dining experiences for University Centers, repackaged food twice a week during fall semester. O\u2019Brien has developed a volunteer process so additional students will help with the process during spring semester at Hilltop and Davies Center<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more volunteers we have, the more packaging we can do,\u201d O\u2019Brien says. \u201cJohn and I can\u2019t package every day so food is still being discarded. If we have enough volunteers, we can create a schedule where most days of the week students could package either in Hilltop or Davies.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Free Food Alert program notifies hungry Blugolds<\/h2>\n

A new Free Food Alert program is being implemented during spring semester that will notify students when free leftover food is available from catered events.<\/p>\n

Faculty who host catered events will send a push notification and\/or email to students who sign up for the program so students can pick up the free food.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the Free Food Alert program is a long time coming to UWEC, where students have advocated for less food waste and better food access on campus for years,\u201d says Lily Strehlow, campus sustainability coordinator. \u201cIt is exciting to find a program which provides the ability to send out this type of notification efficiently while maintaining food safety standards; the program is designed for campuses like ours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strehlow says food security initiatives like the food recovery and free food alert programs ensure food-insecure and low-income students receive the nutritional support they need to complete their educations while reducing food waste.<\/p>\n

Students who want to receive free food notifications can sign up on the\u00a0Free Food Alert<\/a>\u00a0website. Faculty and staff who host an event where free food may be distributed need to complete a short training after signing up on Free Food Alert’s\u00a0host training page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Written by UW-Eau Claire<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/www.uwec.edu\/stories\/food-recovery-program-repackages-leftovers-hungry-students<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  A food recovery program that repackages leftover food from University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire dining services is expanding in spring semester to help feed more students. The program, piloted in fall 2024, provides repackaged meals to Campus Harvest Food Pantry, where they are frozen and available for free to students. The program is a collaborative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":11938,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[96],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-11932","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-eau-claire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/11932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=11932"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=11932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}