Be the Good
As you know, we love celebrating the people who give back to our community. This time, we wanted to talk about an opportunity that Federated Media had to be the good in our neighborhood, and how you can also make a difference.
Back in mid-June, several members of our team met bright & early to volunteer at Cultivate Food Rescue. We couldn’t wait to share our experience, and Laura McNally, the Director of Outreach at Cultivate, even was kind enough to share a few words about our visit. “We are incredibly grateful to the team from Federated Media for your dedication to our mission.” She said. “Our volunteers do more than support our work; you amplify it. Your time and energy make it possible for Cultivate to rescue more food, prepare more meals, and reach more people. Thank you!”
You may have seen social media posts about other companies or teams volunteering at this organization (including several from Notre Dame), but we wanted to share with you the scope of what they do, and just how impactful it is in our community.
Cultivate’s motto is simple, No Neighbor Hungry, No Food Wasted, but their operation is anything but. Cultivate takes donated food from local restaurants in our area and redistributes it to kids in our schools so that they can have food over school breaks and weekends. They address two major community needs, food waste & food insecurities, and do what they can to make a difference in both.
It’s the basic lesson of what our mothers always taught us: “Don’t waste your food, there are hungry kids everywhere!” And now we get to take it to heart.
No Food Wasted
Approximately 133 billion pounds of food is being wasted in the USA every year. For perspective, that equates to filling up the Rose Bowl Stadium with wasted food every day! This is devastating to our environment, considering the energy and resources used to produce the food in the first place and the methane gas released as food rots in landfills. In face, food waste is the third-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
Cultivate Food Rescue wants to be clear that they are not pointing the fingers or blaming anyone for the waste. Sometimes, too much food gets purchased or prepared, maybe a catered event was canceled, the packaging wasn’t right, or the fruit is misshapen. There are so many reasons why food waste occurs, but it all adds up to a staggering amount of good, edible food being thrown away.
This is when Cultivate’s partnerships with local businesses come in handy. Local grocery stores, restaurants, manufacturers, and distributors contact Cultivate Food Rescue and let them know they have excess, good, unused food. This can be frozen day-old chicken patties from Chick-Fil-A, boxes of IQF fruit from Smoothie King, rice from Chipotle, and so much more. Cultivate then drives out to the businesses, rescues the food to prevent it from reaching the landfill, and take it back to their facility and stores it in a proper, food-safe way.
No Neighbor Hungry
13% of our neighbors face food insecurity. This can be hard to think about when we just want to focus on the good, but this is a devastating reality that we don’t want to ignore. In fact, kids in under-supported communities sometimes go 68 hours between meals, they struggle to eat between lunch at school on Friday and breakfast Monday morning. Sometimes, when we hear this kind of data, we like to pretend that this doesn’t happen in our community, but the heartbreaking truth is that it does.
Cultivate Food Rescue utilizes the excess food that they have rescued, and uses it to feed these hungry kiddos. Through their Backpack Program, children in school districts across St. Joseph, Elkhart and Marshall Counties take home six frozen meals each Friday to keep their bellies full over the weekend. They also have Cultivate Cares Food Network, which partners with local pantries to keep their shelves stocked with perishable, healthy items, all free of charge to them.
This is where the extra help in our community comes in. Volunteers in our community help repackage the food into frozen meals. Back in June, our team in particular was able to box up 1,926 meals for the kids in our area. We are so proud to say we were a part of this effort!
What exactly do the kids take home? Each lunch/dinner includes a protein, starch and a fresh or frozen (never canned) vegetable. Each breakfast includes a protein, starch and fruit. Every child receives a backpack including two breakfasts and four lunches/dinners that can be easily microwaved when the child is hungry.
And, as we already know, the food in these meals is rescued from some of the best chefs in the community!
How you can help:
Volunteer! Are your kids involved in any sports or clubs that are looking for community outreach? Maybe you are wanting a team building excursion with your employees and co-workers that will help you feel good in the end. You can gather a group of your closest friends, or simply go by yourself, and volunteer at Cultivate Food Rescue to help prepare and package meals for hungry kids!
Donate food! Cultivate has donor partners that range from grocery stores to colleges, local restaurants, bakeries, farms, distributors, 4H, and so many others! No matter how big or small the donation, every gift has a significant impact on feeding our neighbors and eliminating food waste. If you know of ways to help, sign up now!
We want to thank Laura and the rest of the incredible staff at Cultivate for allowing us the opportunity to give back to the community. What you do is truly changing lives and is such a heartwarming inspiration.
Our team is passionate about being part of the good in our neighborhoods. We are always looking for new ways and new areas where we can volunteer. If you know of an organization that we can volunteer at, let us know in the comments!
