Food recovery program repackages leftovers for hungry students

The program, piloted in fall 2024, provides repackaged meals to Campus Harvest Food Pantry, where they are frozen and available for free to students. The program is a collaborative effort among the Administrative Office of Sustainability, Student Office of Sustainability, University Centers, Sodexo food services and the Campus Harvest Food Pantry.

“This is good, quality food and our college — similar to many universities around the country — have students who face food insecurity,” says Kristen O’Brien, who was a fall semester intern in the Administrative Office of Sustainability and instrumental in starting the program. “When students have good, nutritious, free food it helps their wellbeing and their academics because students can’t fully function on an empty stomach.”

During fall semester, nearly 600 meals, ranging from grilled chicken and beef pot roast to vegetarian lasagna and Mediterranean pasta, were repackaged at Hilltop Center dining services and quickly picked up by Blugolds at the food pantry. The program provides another option for students who face food insecurity, says Dr. Sarah Snyder, student assistance manager and Campus Harvest Food Pantry coordinator.

“These heat-and-eat meals are very popular among our busy students and they really don’t stay in the freezer long,” Snyder says. “Quick and easy meals are always a request our students have, as they don’t always have the time, supplies or space to cook a meal from scratch.

“This was an entirely student-led initiative and I’m so proud of our students for their creative thinking and dedication to the environment and their peers.”

O’Brien, a third-year ecology and environmental biology major from Foley, Minnesota, says the food recovery program is patterned after a similar operation at UW-Madison. Food that is prepared for the Hilltop Center dining but is not placed in the buffet is repackaged for Blugolds who may not have adequate food to eat.

O’Brien and John Arnold, head of dining experiences for University Centers, repackaged food twice a week during fall semester. O’Brien has developed a volunteer process so additional students will help with the process during spring semester at Hilltop and Davies Center

“The more volunteers we have, the more packaging we can do,” O’Brien says. “John and I can’t package every day so food is still being discarded. If we have enough volunteers, we can create a schedule where most days of the week students could package either in Hilltop or Davies.”

New Free Food Alert program notifies hungry Blugolds

A new Free Food Alert program is being implemented during spring semester that will notify students when free leftover food is available from catered events.

Faculty who host catered events will send a push notification and/or email to students who sign up for the program so students can pick up the free food.

“I think the Free Food Alert program is a long time coming to UWEC, where students have advocated for less food waste and better food access on campus for years,” says Lily Strehlow, campus sustainability coordinator. “It is exciting to find a program which provides the ability to send out this type of notification efficiently while maintaining food safety standards; the program is designed for campuses like ours.”

Strehlow says food security initiatives like the food recovery and free food alert programs ensure food-insecure and low-income students receive the nutritional support they need to complete their educations while reducing food waste.

Students who want to receive free food notifications can sign up on the Free Food Alert website. Faculty and staff who host an event where free food may be distributed need to complete a short training after signing up on Free Food Alert's host training page.