Nonprofit launches game-changing initiative to keep students from going hungry: 'Man, are they happy they have it at the end of the day'

A nonprofit in North Carolina is fighting against food waste and helping hungry kids.

According to a report by WRAL News, the Wake County Public School System has partnered with Cary-based nonprofit Toward Zero Waste to prevent food waste while stopping kids from going hungry.

They have created a pilot program called SHARE, which stands for Stop Hunger And Restore Earth. The scheme sets up food carts and refrigerators, where students can put any unwanted packaged food or fruit they receive as part of their school lunch or breakfast. Other students can then browse the carts and refrigerators throughout the day and pick up a free snack if they're feeling hungry.

According to WRAL News, "federal rules require some students to take certain items, such as fruit, for their meal to qualify under the National School Lunch Program or the National School Breakfast Program." This means that if a student doesn't like one of the foods they've been given, it ends up in the trash without schemes like SHARE.

This is an incredible effort to prevent kids from going hungry while also preventing food waste. A fifth of food produced worldwide is wasted or lost. This amounts to 1 billion meals a day, according to the World Food Programme, which also highlighted the trillion-dollar cost of food waste and loss for the global economy.

Reducing food waste can have an incredible impact on students by making fresh, healthy food more accessible. By donating food to hungry kids, programs such as SHARE help lower the risk of food insecurity and prevent food from ending up in landfills.

In your kitchen, buying only as much as you need, using leftovers, and storing your produce correctly to keep it fresh for longer will lower your grocery bills and prevent you from wasting food.

Some of the schools in the pilot scheme put all of the food out at the end of the day for students to take, and found that none of it was wasted.

A magnet coordinator involved in the scheme, Randi Jones, suggested that this may be because students aren't hungry at 10.20 when the first lunch slot is, but that they work up an appetite by the afternoon.

Mentioning cauliflower packets that often end up in the refrigerators at lunch, but are gone by the end of the day, she commented, "Man, are they happy they have it at the end of the day."

What's the most common reason you end up throwing away food? Bought more than I could eat 🛒 Went bad sooner than I expected 👎 Forgot it was in the fridge 😞 Didn't want leftovers 🥡 Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

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