When we were preparing for our very first recovery run the night before, there was a constant red notification sign on my Facebook home page from my Food Recovery Network leadership team’s Facebook group message. After the spring semester had passed, we were able to complete our first official recovery run during the fall 2015 semester. Hannah Gingerich was another FRN National Fellow who helped me bring FRN to Marist, and both she and Sara helped me every step of the way, which I am very appreciative of. Spring 2015 was where a majority of the prep work occurred for gathering my leadership team, contacting Sodexo dining services and partner agencies, and prepping for recovery runs. But little did I know what I was getting myself into. It didn’t seem like a hefty process looking at the roadmap PDF for starting a Food Recovery Network chapter. She outlined the steps of what I had to go through to start my chapter: recruit a leadership team, find a partner agency, and get dining approval. “I’m SO excited to hear you want to start a chapter at Marist College!.”. Reading her email, I could practically hear her enthusiastic voice. Even though it only took Sara Ribakove, one of the FRN National Fellows that helped me through the whole process, 48 hours to respond back to me, it felt like weeks passed because I was waiting in anticipation.
Once I read all the way down to my signature at the bottom of the message, I clicked send. “To whom it may concern, hello, my name is Nicole Souza, and I am currently a junior…”. I reread my email several times, making sure everything was formal and I had zero grammatical errors. The first step in bringing a Food Recovery Network chapter to Marist was to contact Food Recovery Network’s national headquarters about inquiring to begin the process. I closed my browser, and over the next few days, Food Recovery Network and its’ mission lingered in the back of my mind, and eventually I decided to take action.Ĭold-calling wasn’t exactly my strong suit. I wondered to myself, Why doesn’t Marist College have a system like this on campus? What happened to all of the leftovers Sodexo has at the end of the day? Does that get thrown away too? I thought about all of those dishes and plates full of food on the dining rack in our school’s main dining hall, all about to be dumped in the trash. I was already in the mindset that wasting perfectly edible food was a huge taboo, and here was a non-profit organization whose mission was to fight food waste. This was a cause primarily focused on recovering perishable food and bringing it to those in need. After navigating through the site’s different tabs and content, something sparked inside me. Curious, I clicked on the link and it brought me to their national website. As I got to the bottom of the email, I saw a small blurb describing an organization called Food Recovery Network. The DailySkimm is a quick-read email that gives a breakdown of the global news. It was my spring semester during my sophomore year of college, and I was cleaning out my inbox. It all started when I was reading the DailySkimm email I get every weekday morning.