CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a "food waste" challenge, one Charlotte high school student jumped at the chance to make a difference.
The goal is to take good food that might normally be trashed and instead use it to help curb hunger in the community.
At East Mecklenburg High School, Hanna Wondmagegn has turned lunchtime into an opportunity for students to give back.
“Students have the ability to drop off any of the food they don't want. The only food we collect is packaged uneaten foods,” Hanna said.
She organized a food recovery program on campus.
So far this school year, she has collected more than 4,500 items of milk, salads and fruit cups to donate to other young people in need.
“It feels amazing because it's such a simple idea- we've been fighting hunger for so long, and people's immediate reaction is ‘let’s make more food.’ We already have enough food,” Hanna said.
The snacks have found a home at Independence Regional Library, right across the street.
The staff said every day nearly 30 teens spend up to five hours studying at the library after school.
“They do come in hungry, and we don't know when they're going to get to eat and, some of them, if they will get to eat at all the rest of the day,” teen lead librarian Britni Cherrington-Stoddart said.
It's an easy way to serve that Hanna hopes other schools will adopt.
“If we didn't have food recovery, this food would be sitting in our landfills in the trash and people in the library community not having enough to eat,” Hanna said.
“Realizing how much food other schools could be throwing away, a very large amount, so a big impact,” Hanna said.
It took Hanna nine months of work to launch the program.
She met with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools food nutrition, the Health Department and others.
She said East Meck is the only school in the Carolinas with such a program.
To learn more about the USDA Food Waste Challenge, click
.
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