Boulder Food Rescue
Sustainable Just-in-time Food Rescue
As we gear up for Colorado Gives Day next Tuesday, December 10, we are asking for your support to increase our impact! For every $1, we are able to redistribute $8 worth of fresh produce. We are committed to increasing food access, while diverting perfectly good and nourishing food from the landfill.
You can make a difference in your community by scheduling a donation for Colorado Gives Day or securely on our website.
Food Rescue Alliance member, Colorado Springs Food Rescue, was featured in this article by Food Tank. The Food Rescue Alliance is growing and currently at 23 member organizations.
A little about Food Rescue Alliance in the article:
The Food Rescue Alliance sees residents as leaders in the development process rather than targets of an intervention. “Food Rescue models enable community-based solutions to take over, decentralizing food access and increasing participation on a city-wide level,” Dansky explains, “Increasing participation at programs increases food access because individuals are more likely to be involved and receive produce if they can give back, and are more likely to set up systems that work for their community if they have an active hand and voice in doing that.” The emphasis on community development is critical as other studies have shown that neglecting community members will result in persistent issues with food access.
This segment was recently featured on Channel 8 News. The clip interviews a member of our rapid response team, Josh McNulty, while on a food rescue shift. It features the behind the scenes sorting process at the grocery store and biking the produce around town, as well as a brief interview with our Executive Director, Hayden Dansky.
For the full article and audio interview: https://news.kgnu.org/2019/07/tackling-food-waste-and-hunger-in-boulder-county/JULY 1, 2019 / KGNU NEWS / FEATURED, HUNGER
According to a 2014 study published by the US Department of Agriculture, 150,000 pounds of food is thrown out of US households every day. At the same time, hunger is still a major problem in the United States. In Boulder, one out of every eight people and one out of every five families face food insecurity. Hayden Dansky, Executive Director of the non-profit Boulder Food Rescue, tells KGNU’s Sarah Dalgleish that the organization aims to tackle both problems at the same time.
“Our mission is to create a more just and less wasteful food system. We collect food that would otherwise be wasted from grocery stores and take it directly to low-income communities across Boulder. The food we focus on is healthy produce that is soon to expire.”
The food is transported from donors to recipients using bikes with large trailers designed for the purpose of holding heavy boxes of produce.
“Often food is getting thrown away blocks from where people need it, so it makes sense to bike it,” Danksy says. “The cool, unintended benefit of having a bike-based organization is now we have a community of volunteers who love biking. It actually increases civic engagement and people’s ability to plug into the organization—I think we have a lot of people who are involved in Boulder Food Rescue who wouldn’t have driven.”
Dansky explains that while food waste and food insecurity are complex issues, there are things each person can do to help contribute to solutions.
“You can do anything from planning your weekly meals to moving food in the back of the fridge to the front. These little things that each individual can do will actually make a really big difference in terms of minimizing food waste in this country.”
To learn more about BFR, you can visit their website www.boulderfoodrescue.org.