friendship donation network proposal

Michelle A. LeeRosalyn Moisen

Cassie Moore

WRTG 3170

Shared Meal: A Formal Proposal

The Friendship Donations Network

A Plan to Partner with Ithaca College

2

1013 West Martin Luther King Jr./State Street, Ithaca, NY, 14850 ~ [email protected] ~ (607)216-9522

December 13, 2015Friendship Donations Network1013 West Martin Luther King Jr. / State Street Ithaca, New York 14850

Dear Ms. Sheehan Rosen,

We are pleased to present our fund project in Proposal and Grant Writing, Let’s Eat: A Formal Proposal. This fund project addresses the continued need for Friendship Donations Network’s food rescue operations to continue within the Tompkins County community, as well as potential future goals for a partnership with Ithaca College to address methods to rescue food on their campus. Enclosed are internal and external documents, including our action plan. These specifi-cally detail the goals and tasks we have laid out in order to begin work on the suggested agenda.

Thank you for your time, support and encouragement over the past few weeks. You allowed us to complete our assigned work efficiently and quickly. Your frequent visits to our in class workshops enabled us to gather the proper information we needed to create a proposal for future FDN and Ithaca College relations to develop.

The plan that we have generated allows FDN to adopt various aspects to accommodate future growth and changes that the organization will be faced with throughout its future work within the community. If an Ithaca College and FDN partnership were to develop more strongly, the amount of food rescue growth may require more volunteers, part-time staff or facility adjust-ments to accommodate FDN’s needs. Our plan focuses on ways in which the organization can grow and still maintain its sustainable mission of doing a lot of work for little overhead.

Thank you for considering the proposal that we have put together for FDN.

SIncerely,

Michelle A. Lee

Rosalyn Moisen

Cassie Moore

Letter of Transmittal

3


Internal Documents

Literature Review 5-8SWOT Analysis 9-11Funding Plan 12-14Funding Search 15-16

External Documents

Letter of Inquiry 18-20Executive Summary 21Organizational History 21-22Initiative Statement 23 Statement of Need 24

Action Plan

Goals and Objectives 26-27Tasks and Timelines 28-29Impact Statement 30Key Personnel and Staffing 30Evaluation Plan 31Dissemination Plan 31Future Funding Statement 31Conclusions 32Budget Summary 33Budget Narrative 34

Appendix

Tri Fold 36Press Release 37Newsletter 38-39Solicitation Letter 40Ithaca Times Cover Story 41-43

Table of Contents

4


Internal Documents

5


“Policies, such as information campaigns and additional changes in Federal laws, may have the greatest potential to reduce food loss in the next decade.” This statement aligns with the new federal goal to reduce U.S. food waste 50% by the year 2030.

Food Waste QuantifiedDo Americans love food waste as much as they love football? Apparently, yes. According to a recent USDA research bulletin, Americans create enough food waste each year to fill up 730 football field stadi-ums. The current American food system will generate 133 billion pounds of food waste yearly, that is 20 pounds per person every month getting trashed for no good reason. Food rescue will be a crucial venture in the movement to drastically cut back on the massive amount of food waste while also addressing the needs of many hungry Americans. We need to streamline more food to forks, not dumps.

Friendship Donations Network’s GoalsFriendship Donations Network’s mission rescues food from local grocers, farms and community members garden’s that would otherwise be thrown away and redistribute it to various neighbors in need. Friendship Donations Network aims to simultaneously target and eliminate food waste that occurs within the Tomp-kins County region by diminishing the large presence of community members living within food-insecure households. The work done at Friendship Donations Network relies heavily on a dedicated, action-orientat-ed volunteer base that organizes daily pickup and drop-off trips between donated food and the community kitchens and food pantries they are partnered with. This daily action of rescuing food from landfills and putting it in the hands and stomachs of our neighbors who need it most is a prime example of a grassroots initiative striving to end food waste while helping to feed neighbors within the community.

Solving a Complex ProblemThe issue of American food waste is complex and widespread. Multiple areas within the food supply chain need to readdress the ways in which they produce, package and present food that Americans will consume. This issue is not just an industry problem and adjustments to their logistical infrastructure will not entirely solve the multi-faceted food waste issue that we face. American consumers and their food habits are largely part of the cycle that allows for food that is edible and nutritious to fill up landfills. Patterns of misinfor-mation around various topics like food date labels and aesthetic judgments of what is “good” or “bad” to consume directly correlate to what gets eaten or is scraped. “This range of food loss combined with econ-omies of scale suggest that large, industry-led initiatives or government-led policies, such as information campaigns and additional changes in Federal laws, may have the greatest potential to reduce food loss in the next decade.” This statement aligns with the new federal goal to reduce U.S. food waste 50% by the year 2030.

Harmful LabelsThe confusing market based relationship between sellers of food and American consumers is rooted in a myriad of vague and unclear labels that guide perceptions on when exactly the food we purchase should be bought or consumed by. Manufacturer’s labels are intended to be a best guess from producers to tell con-sumers when they think their products quality of freshness will be most optimal for the consumer. The

Are You Going to Eat That? A Literature Review

6


quality control methods of producers is not exactly clearly communicated which leaves American consum-ers lost in a series of assumptions and suggestions like “best by,” “sell by,” or “expired.” The variations in wording, along with the generalized assumption that these dates inherently determine a product’s overall consumability, trick consumers into confusing suggested purchasing windows with the true edibility of a product living longer than suggestions.

A commonly asserted habit that many Americans hold true to in the kitchen is a strict compliance with these dates without really understanding if a food item is still edible, most of the time it is. When these suggested dates become a person’s guide to determining the usability of a food item it often results in a lot of unnecessary food waste due to food that is prematurely ditched. At least 91% of consumers report to at least occasionally discarding food past its “sell by” date out of concerns for the product not being safe enough to consume. Manufacturer’s create small windows to determine optimal quality which creates a feedback loop to consumers who believe that when the food’s “time” runs out, they must throw away and buy new. Stores often will intentionally pull products from their shelves 2-3 days before the dated label runs out; this alarmingly small time frame to purchase and consume a product does not really reflect a food’s true editability or freshness.

The association between these manufacturer dates and the food item’s safety in terms of potentially being the cause of a food related illness is a myth. These dates are official looking but truly are meaningless; the Food and Drug Administration does not have a policy that requires producers to regulate their food for the consumer’s safety. The idea that food that has “gone bad” due to aging, quality in taste changing, or visu-ally tells consumers that the product is “bad” and needs to be discarded. With a shift in our perceptions and more knowledge about what actually causes foodborne illnesses these misconceptions can be changed.

How Food Really HurtsThe idea that if food that has an odor, wilts or is consumed passed the labeled date often triggers a peceived and constructed fear in American consumers that they will potentially be exposed to a food related illness. In reality, foodborne illnesses stem from exposure to bacteria like E. coli, listeria or salmonella which come in contact with food during preparation if not done correctly. The food that just arrived to the store or looks the freshest may in fact be the thing that makes people sick. The foodborne illnesses are associated with those bacteria and can be on any food surface, it is not related to something “going bad” or starting to decay.

There is No Perfect “Look”This mentality is reflected in the way farmers and grocers harvest and present food. Americans have been conditioned to assign a strict visual food aesthetic with a food’s edibleness or its taste. In this country the concept of “ugly” food versus “quality” is extremely weighted in what Americans will see at stores and ultimately buy. For farmers who harvest the food we buy and eat, they are also influenced by this visual aestheticism as-sociated with the food they will ship out to stores. The FDA has a system for judging how a piece of food should look, giving a peach for example, a number to determine what a defining version of what a peach should look like. Naturally, not all food grown will have this “look” which encourages farmers to leave be-hind scores of produce that have not met the strict visual criteria. What happens to the food left behind and is still entirely edible just not the “right” shape?

7


The overstocking of produce and meats is a prime example of this visual trickery leading to wasteful habits; Americans who go into a store and see a large stock on the shelves versus few remaining options hold the belief that those options must be bad because it is the last pick. This overstock usually results in food that is perfectly edible to be sent straight to the dump. When grocers attempt to satisfy our consumer expectations of always having enough product that looks good it encourages consumers to take more than they need or will actually use. These consumption and purchasing habits that we are all attuned to induce a cycle that sends a lot of food to landfills unnecessarily.

Donate Don’t Discard

This is where Friendship Donations Network and other various food rescue organizations enter. Their model combines two of America’s most pressing needs, excessive food waste that is filling up landfills, degrad-ing the environment and the scores of families that are food insecure. In 2013, 49.1 million people lived in households that faced food insecurity or the lack of enough healthy food to sustain themselves. That is 1 out of every 6 Americans, these are our neighbors and friends facing a private and personal struggle to supple-ment a most basic human requirement which is needed for self substantiation.

Friendship Donations Network is doing the work needed to be done but it needs help in combatting these issues. There needs to be a shift from the excess food that has been ending up in American landfills rotting and releasing methane into the atmosphere and not heading to households in need. Just like misconceptions attached to food being labeled as “good” or “bad” within stores or Americans kitchens, associations between potential donors not fully understanding the food donation process. There are organizations existing, like Friendship Donations Network, whose primary objective is to move food from stores and farms that is con-sidered excess and will be thrown away to people who will actually use it and benefit from it nutritionally.

Federal Food Discourse and Protection

There is also a piece of legislation that protects food donors against this exact perceived fear of food dona-tion related liability lawsuits. The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act says that food donations from business-es or other various food related distributors will be protected against any potential liability issues that are a result from the food that has been charitably donated to food rescue organizations or community kitchens. Stores and businesses that are concerned with their public image should reconsider putting their judgments into very unrealistic “what if” situations that would arise from donating their excess food and claim an iden-tity that strives to reduce waste and help out the entire community that they are responsible to feed.

Another aspect of the food donation system that can change to increase the potentiality for more food to be rescued by places like Friendship Donations Network is the creation of a tax deductible incentive for poten-tial food donors that are also small businesses. As of right now small businesses are not entirely guaranteed to receive a government tax break when they donate food to charities making the act of donating not entirely economically viable for businesses that have to account for their small overhead costs. If there was more of a tax related incentive to donate rather than discard the excess food then more potential donor relationships could be created for Friendship Donations Network. Currently only 10% of available and edible food waste is being recovered and distributed.

Food donors also require charitable organizations to have a system that will run and exist consistently and efficiently without much oversight from donors themselves. Donors are often farmers and store owners who

8


have other time consuming agendas and goals that do not allow for extra time to be spent ensuring that donat-ed food will be received by communities in need.

Conclusion

The American food waste issue is multifaceted and involves many varying aspects that are a part of the reason why billions of pounds of food that is worth millions of dollars every year gets wasted and never eaten. The high rates of food insecurity within the U.S. also demands a clearer and well defined focus. Uniting the two causes that are intrinsically linked is what Friendship Donations Network strives to do. The challenges that we face to reduce food waste and bring nutritious food to families within the community that need it is some-thing that Friendship Donations Network cannot do alone. Networks between similar organizations and insti-tutions with like minded goals are next steps that can be taken so more can be done to combat these problems. Simultaneously, individual perceptions and education about personal habits and how they relate to the food system processes will bring a better scope to discussing how changes can be made, small and large, that will ultimately result in less food being thrown away, more food for our community, and a healthier planet.

9


SWOT AnalysisStrengths

Opportunities

Weaknesses

Threats

StrengthsSpecialized Mission The Friendship Donation Network’s biggest strength is it’s a niche organization. It is the only nonprofit in the greater Ithaca area completely dedicated to the reduction of food waste. This goal is good for multiple reasons, first and foremost the huge environmental benefit of reducing food waste. But there is also a market advantage because with FDN unique mis-sion they have no direct competitors.

Low OverheadFDN does a lot with little overhead. No one would guess you operate on a shoestring budget. In 2012 you only spent about $32,000 in expenses for the year. Most of this income came from a donation, of a $5,000 grant. Being frugal has made you into a very flexible and efficient organization. Even with little overhead, you still rescue over 500,000 pounds of food that would usually end up in a landfill. Along the sames lines with expenses, FDN does not have to pay for incoming donations, like most food banks. The original des-tination of the food is a landfill, so for the donor it has no value.

Network of Volunteers FDN has a strong volunteer network and is run primarily by volunteers. This both saves money, but also allows flexibility. FDN’s volunteers are on call 24/7 to rescue food, especially non-perishable foods. With-out so many free workers, it would be harder to support a staff that was on call 24/7.

Strong Sense of Community FDN helps Ithaca business and residents reduce waste and is able to recruit. This strong sense of commu-nity helps you thrive as an organization; in so many ways you help your neighbors. FDN connects with the very environmentally conscious community of Ithaca. You have done a great job collaborating with local CSAs and local gardeners with the neighborhood food hubs, expanding their food intake. Also FDN truly believes that no one in Ithaca should go hungry. Your main goal is to aid the community. That goal is implicit in your name: Friendship Donation Network.

10


WeaknessesName recognition Not enough people know about FDN because it is a small organization that does a lot with little resources. Because of this, it is sometimes easy to go unseen when other huge organizations advertise on television and radio to promote themselves. FDN needs to be known in the Tompkins County region so that more food can be rescued from more facilities. This becomes a factor because a lot of food is still wasted in Ithaca and outer communities.

Social MediaFDN has an active Facebook page that you strives to update frequently, you mostly post shoutouts to people who donate food as well as important articles that have to do with your mission. You also makes sure that your Facebook page is updated with recent information about what you are doing in the community what lo-cal event you will be attending. But FDN can do better with the amount of followers that you have. Instead of using these popular social media sites that many people probably don’t use anymore, you could create a blog that would better cater to your current followers. The blog can include what FDN does on a daily basis and because vlogs (video blogs) are becoming popular, you can also create videos showcasing the facility and a day in the life.

Donors Another problem that FDN faces is the lack of relationships between potential donors. Everyday, FDN misses out on opportunities of rescuing food from local restaurants, finding a way to connect with Ithaca College’s campus, and other local schools in the area. The fact that you are big on asking for food and not money also sets you back a bit because you need money to continue running your organization. At the same time, you don’t want monetary donations to override the food donations, what you want to do is outsource the outreach to get more donations in order to run a successful organization.

OpportunitiesMore Food Rescued! The large amount of food waste that is still occurring within the local community pres-ents Friendship Donations Network with the opportunity to highlight the niche aspect of the organization, which is framing the food waste as something in need of rescuing. Rescuing food is one of the core elements to FDN. By reframing the US food waste issue focusing on the misconceptions of how we currently view food “going bad” which results in it ending up in a landfill as wasted money, energy and a pollutant. FDN’s mission to take food that still is fresh, edible and nutritious and redistribute to other community

organizations that aid in the eliminating community hunger through distributing this rescued food to those who need it. Food is still in need of rescue at places like Ithaca College and in local restaurants. Resource HubThrough the various connections that Friendship Donations Network has with local programs and commu-nity groups that are involved in food waste and community hunger discourse, FDN has the ability to host a platform for the multitude of voices that are coming together to tackle the complex issues surrounding food waste and hunger. This encompasses conversations from community members who are creating Tompkins County Food Policy Council or members of the Cornell Cooperative Extension disseminating “Veggie Fact

11


Threats

Cards” that educate community members on various fresh foods and how to prepare them, and a community cookbook. Student Internship Opportunities Friendship Donations Networks volunteer base is strong, organized and actively rescuing local food every-day. A need for more internal support as well as a reaching out to create a space for student participation in the form of an internship will benefit FDN as well as any Ithaca College, TC3, or Cornell student interested in working with the organization. Their duties could range from updating a blog or generating public aware-ness via other social media platforms on relevant topics that the Network wants to inform the public about.Student Internship Opportunities

Misconceptions about Food Donations A threat that FDN faces is misconceptions that food donors have about the food donation process and potential liability issues. There needs to be a better understanding of exter-nal policies, like the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donations Act, which protects restaurants and grocers from any potential liability issues that may arise in donating food to NGOs. Very often food is prematurely disposed of because the food quality is not up to a particularly high standard despite the food still being edible and nutritious. This form of extreme quality control fills up landfills with food that is still safe and healthy to eat!

FDN’s mission of rescuing food that still holds value and is in demand by local food pantries and kitchens, feeding the communities hungry. Lack of Information within Communities about FoodFriendship Donation Network faces another threat after food is rescued and distributed to its neighbors, some people may not be familiar with how to prepare or cook the fresh, healthy food in their fridges. As-sumptions that organic produce will be hard to cook or make taste delicious is an issue that FDN may face if accessible and understandable information does not accompany food distribution to our neighbors. Competition In an extremely social and politically active community like Ithaca, the competition between NGOs for resources is apparent simply because there are so many active NGOs within the community doing various sorts of work. Where FDN has a niche mission of rescuing food that benefits the communities well being as well as the planets, there still is a threat that we may not have what we need monetarily or logistically to get the job done everyday.

VolunteersWith more food in need of rescue there will be a need for more volunteers, specifically volunteers that are associated with donors affiliated with college campuses. The hardworking volunteer base that already exists within FDN successfully manages the donors they currently work with. However, in expanding the reach of FDN and the food it rescues to places like Ithaca College, a concern that the existent FDN volunteer base will not have the capacity to manage a constant and heavy flow of food donations coming from these places. This concern can be addressed through introducing a volunteer manager for FDN to specifically handle all aspects of organizing the volunteers and managing logistical details that will ensure consistent and success-ful food recovery missions on a regular basis from donors.

12


Project Funding PlanFDN Mission StatementThe Friendship Donations Network (FDN) a non profit organization, strives to save fresh, nutritious food that would otherwise be wasted, and redirects that food to people in need while also keeping it out of the landfills. Every year, up to 600,000 pounds of perishable food is saved. FDN’s donations include a wide assortment of produce both local and exotic, as well as organic products. By doing this, they provide the community with options to a healthy and varied diet that they wouldn’t be able to afford on their own.

The initial goal was to create a relationship with Ithaca College, a small liberal arts campus with a strong commitment to sustainability. FDN has received donations from Ithaca College in the past, but never on a regular basis. FDN wants to improve that relationship by receiving donations from Ithaca at least once a month. An action plan has been created to strive towards that goal. However, before FDN makes such a big commitment, it wants to make sure it is financially secure and can make the changes necessary to collaborate with Ithaca College. FDN has created a budget that will show the areas of financial need in the organization.

Assessment of FDN Funding NeedFDN prides itself on being an organization that does a lot with little overhead. Because their main goal in-volves a collaboration, money is not really needed. The main purpose is really making sure the same amount of money is obtained and maybe a bit more with the changes that are to be made with the organization. With that in mind, the proposed budget doesn’t ask for nothing more than the necessities. FDN’s CoolBot, is used for storing frozen food’s, powered by only an air conditioner and costs us only 5 cents per day.

In all, FDN would like to request $546,830 to continue efforts in rescuing food and appreciating volunteers. The budget is broken down by personnel and non-personnel costs. Personnel costs comes up to $30,170, which is the salary for the part-time coordinator and volunteer appreciation. Non-personnel costs equate to $52,500. The break down for this is $200 for office supplies, this includes paper, pens, etc. $400 for fundrais-ing (including postage), this means preparing materials for fundraisers such as posters and advertising materi-al. $3000 for gas money; since many volunteers use their personal cars to drive to and from donors, we want to be able to provide volunteers with gas cards. $3000 for rent, in order to continue having the space to keep donated food. $600 for food quality plastic bags, to keep certain foods fresh that could perish quickly, and $300 for volunteer recognition, this could be a celebration of our volunteers, thanking them for their service.

These necessities will ensure that FDN stays a stable organization. Also, if we were to look at our volun-teer labor in numbers, we record that they provide 24,000 hours of service each year. With a rate of $19.34 an hour, that is $464,160 a year! If we convert the amount of food that is rescued, we save around 500,000 pounds per year which translates to $0.09 per pound, which equates to $45,000 a year. In terms of conversion, we are able to accumulate large amounts of donations and service.

13


Funding Goals and Objectives Goal 1: Continue to receive donations and grant money.

Objective: Our donations are greatly appreciated and are helpful in keeping FDN on its feet. If we continue to receive at least $15,000 in donations and about $15,000 in grants, we would be right on track. Goal 2: Raise around $34,300 to provide a salary to our part time worker and honorous for volunteer appre-ciation.

Objective: The program coordinator will work about 20-25 hours a week at about $19.34 an hour. Volunteer appreciation will be used for a small gathering of all the volunteers thanking them for their service. Usually this gathering will have food, paper products, and we sometimes give a small gift at the end. Goal 3: Obtain enough funds to be able to maintain the FDN facility and operation. Objective: in order to keep everything running smoothly, we would need $6,600 which would make sure we have enough office supplies, gas money and rent money to keep the FDN facility up and running. We will also need enough funds for our volunteers who travel to obtain and deliver food.

Plan of Action Stage 1: We plan to ask for money from 8 different organizations. Of those 8, we predict 4 of them will give us a large amount of money. Our most important goal is to look at the deadlines for these places to make sure we meet them in time. Since most of them are available in 2016, it is appropriate for us to start preparing documents now in order to send them off right away.

Stage 2: The USDA Community Food Projects grant speaks very close to our mission stating, “...fight food insecurity through developing community food projects that help promote the self-sufficiency of low-in-come communities.” At FDN we heavily believe in this notion and clearly see how this relationship be-tween FDN and USDA can form.

Stage 3: The Ben and Jerry’s Foundation, Grassroots Organizing for Social Change speaks directly to FDN in promoting the grassroots way of organizing. To be eligible for this grant we must be, “from grassroots constituent-led organizations that are using community-organizing and base-building strategies to accom-plish their goals.” FDN believes strongly in the grassroots way of life and encouraging community partici-pation. We continue to look for new ways to make FDN better than it is now while maintaining our values and mission.

Stage 4: The other organization we hope to seek funds from is United Way Hunger and Food Security Fund. They support health and human service programs that make a strong community impact. As long as we meet the criteria of addressing “hunger and food security, and the need for personal care items,” then we can apply for this grant. This, of course, is our prime mission and with both of us having similar mind-sets, FDN believes we can obtain money from United Way.

14


Stage 5: The last organization we believe we will receive and large amount of funds is Specialty Food Foundation. They give out general grants to nonprofits who meets their mission goal and vision, which is to “develop and support tangible and lasting solutions to hunger and food recovery, amplifying the innovation and passion of the specialty food community.” A letter of inquiry is due March 1st-April 30 while the full proposal is due July 10th. This gives FDN room to improve anything in the proposal and properly prepare the necessary documents

Monitoring and Evaluation of Funding Objectives FDN will start applying to specific donors as soon as possible to meet deadlines. The specific donors can be found in the donor search section of this portfolio. We will use proposed budgets from previous years to determine an average amount of what we might receive. From the money we receive, we will plan according-ly on how we would like to spend that money and what we might have to cut back on, or where we can put more effort to improve our services.

15


Project Funding SearchName: Ben and Jerry’s Foundation, Grassroots Organizing for Social ChangeGrant: General Grant Website: http://benandjerrysfoundation.org/the-grassroots-organizing-for-social-change-program/Description: An organization must be a certified nonprofit in the United States. The Foundation “will only consider proposals from grassroots, constituent-led organizations that are using commu-nity-organizing and base-building strategies to accomplish their goals.” They offer one-year grants for up to $20,000 to organizations with budgets under $500,000. Only organizations with 501(c)3 or who have a fiscal agent with this status are eligible. Application Due Date: 2016 to be postedContacts: Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, Inc. 30 Community Drive South Burlington, VT 05403 802-846-1500 [email protected]

Name: EPAGrant: General Grant Website: http://water.epa.gov/grants_funding/Description: The EPA works to fund national and local organization that are committed to sus-tainability. Specifically to apply for a grant “The goal of this program is to support environmental education (EE) projects which enhance the public’s awareness, knowledge, and skills to make informed and responsible decisions that affect environmental quality.”Application Due Date: 2016 Applications to be open Contacts: Environmental Protection Agency Office of Grants and Department Mail Code: 3901 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. Washington, D.C. 20460 [email protected]

Foundation Funding Prospects

16


Name: Park Foundation, Sustainable Ithaca Grants, Educational and Behavioral Change Grant: General Grant Website: http://www.parkfoundation.org/sustainable_ithaca_grants.htmlDescription: This Particular section of the Park Foundation helps Tompkins county to become a fully sustainable community. Priority of the grants are given to those with a high sustainability goal. In terms of Educational and Behavioral Change projects the Park Foundation wants to focus on organizations with action oriented approaches to produce lifestyle changes in recycling and waste reduction. The amount of the grant varies according to need.Application Due Date: Applications will open in the Winter of 2015Contacts: Park Foundation Inc. P.O. Box 550 Ithaca New York 14851 607/272-9124 [email protected]

Name: Social Service League of IthacaGrant: General Grant Website: http://hsctc.org/index.php?page=social-service-leagueDescription: The mission of the Social Service League is to aid the Tompkins non-for-profits, human service organizations in their work to address the communities most significant needs. “Any not-for-profit, incorporated, human/social service provider in Tompkins County is eligible to apply.” Organizations must also show the ability to sustain themselves without continuing support of the League. The organization will allocated $16,008 to 15 organizations.Application Due Date: Fall 2015Contacts: Nancy Burston Human Services Coalition 171 East MLK Jr./State Street #133 Ithaca, NY 14850

Name:Specialty Food FoundationGrant: General Grant Website: http://www.specialtyfoodfoundation.org/Description:The Specialty Food Foundation mission is to “develop and support tangible and lasting solutions to hunger and food recovery, amplifying the innovation and passion of the specialty food community.” Their vision as a foundation is to form “a community of social entrepreneurs breaking the hunger cycle and enriching life.” The foundation will give grants to organizations that are recog-nized by the IRS and ones who correspond with The Specialty Food. $5,000 to $30,000 and will be awarded to organizations fighting hunger and aiding in food recovery in the domestic U.S.Application Due Date: Letter of Inquiry due, March 1 – April 30. Full proposal, July 10 Contacts: Laura Lozada Philanthropy Director, Specialty Food Association [email protected] 646-878-0148

17


External Documents

18


Letter of Inquiry Ms. Laura Lozada Philanthropy Director, Specialty Food Association 136 Madison Avenue, 12th FloorNew York, NY 10016

Dear Ms. Lozada,

Reducing Food Waste Together

Friendship Donations Network (FDN) local Tompkins County nonprofit organization, rescues healthy and nourishing food that would be otherwise sent to landfills and redistributes it to local food pantries and kitchens that feed our community’s hungry. FDN seeks funding to support and cover facility needs that will continue our operations in Ithaca, New York. We aim to further our current reach through estab-lishing stronger connections with Ithaca College to rescue the unused food on campus. To continue our current daily goals of rescuing and redistributing food we must ensure funds that will cover our organi-zation’s minimal overhead requirements such as facility operations costs and program coordinator salary. We are requesting a total of $6,600 to cover our overhead costs that will keep our facility running and utility costs covered.

The Speciality Food Association’s priorities align supremely well with Friendship Donations Networks project initiatives because our project will encourage a sustainable reduction of food waste with an Ithaca College partnership that will further educate and increase local awareness of food waste issues at a community level as well as encourage Ithaca College students to have a heightened awareness of the food waste cycle and its implications as global citizens. Friendship Donations Networks initiatives to redistribute food otherwise destined to be waste creates agency within our community to be social entrepreneurs by taking local food waste and converting it into food that will feed our community’s hun-gry. The community level actions driven by our strong volunteer base encourages a locally organized, hands-on approach to dealing with community issues of food waste and community hungry through our systematic approach to food rescue.

A Joint Call to Action

Food waste is a large and growing concern within the US and new federal initiatives have recently been set in place to reduce our country’s total food waste by 50% before 2050. This call to action comes from the current rate in which Americans have been throwing away food that is still nutritious and able to be consumed; this food gets sent away to landfills where it rots causing further environmental degradation through methane emissions. Methane is a large and problematic greenhouse gas that is a major contrib-utor to climate change. Every year Americans will generate 133 billion pounds of food waste per year, that is roughly 20 pounds per person each month. This has major impacts to our diminishing landfills, environment and our wallets.

19


The food waste that Americans create by throwing out food before it truly is inedible stems from suggestions based on manufacturer's recommendations to when our food is at its “freshest,” not a true reflection on when food reaches a point of inedibility. This still edible and nutritious food gets discarded rather than redistributed. That is where the work that is being done currently at Friendship Donations Network highlights positive and sustainable alternatives that directly hinder the food waste cycle to continue through the process of food rescue. Food rescue is the act of taking food that is still healthy and edible and instead of throwing it away to rot, it gets delivered to food pantries and community kitchens whose goal is to feed and reduce the number of people suffering from hunger in our local communities.

FDN’s Role in Our Community

Friendship Donations Network’s role within the town of Ithaca and the larger Tompkins County community is crucial to curbing the food waste that is generated within our region. The daily vol-unteer driven processes of picking up food from our community partners and physically taking it to community organizations that feed the hungry is a strongly relied on community resource. Through increasing donor relationships, for example by partnering with Ithaca College, not only will we res-cue more food from a large institution but we will be able to offer more of that rescued food to our community partners. This project will also further offer opportunities for increased education on the topics of food waste and allow for more dialogues that will generate sustainable solutions to the food waste issues that our community and country face today.

The timing of this project is critical primarily because the call to action to reduce food waste and feed our community’s hungry are both needed to be addressed by workable, solution oriented pro-grams like the work currently being done at Friendship Donations Network. Our organization has been successfully rescuing and redistributing food for 27 years. Our extensive and dedicated volun-teer base redirects healthy and nutritious food to over 2,100 people every week. In total the amount of food that our organization has diverted from landfills is over 500,000 pounds per year. This food addresses the issue of hunger that is very predominate within our community through sustainable, community driven initiatives.

We believe that Friendship Donations Networks unique position as a non-profit organization offers an environmentally and socially conscious model to address two very important issues that we face as a community and country. The dedication to our mission and goals have been continuously in action since our founding in 1988 by Sara Pines. The strong grassroots, minimal overhead methods of fulfilling our mission, strongly roots us in a sustainable and socially aware community group.

How the Job Gets Done

Our large and dedicated volunteer base ensures that our daily pickups and drop-offs of rescued food that are successfully moved from our community donors to the partnerships we have with organiza-tions and agencies that aim to reduce community hunger. Our volunteers provide over 24,000 hours of labor to ensure that our daily tasks are met. We also have functionable facilities that house res-cued food between pickup and drop-off events which include refrigeration for perishable goods.

20


Friendship Donations Network (FDN) is requesting $6,600 to ensure that our facilities and oper-ations can continue. These funds would be directed toward non personnel costs including office supplies, facility costs to keep our storage unit functioning, gas costs for volunteer transportation of rescued food, and volunteer appreciation gifts and events.

We hope that our shared passion in reducing food waste through working with dedicated and well informed global citizens who actively are taking action to save food and help our hungry neigh-bors will encourage your help in fulfilling our operational needs to continue the work we are doing. Please let us know if we can provide you with additional information or discuss this further by phone, e-mail, or in person. We look forward to the opportunity to work more with you and draft a full proposal for your review.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Meaghan Sheehan-Rosen

Friendship Donations Network, Program Coordinator

21


Executive SummaryThe Friendship Donation Network, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, rescues fresh nutritious food from stores and farms that would otherwise be thrown away and redistributes it to our neighbors in need. We work to reduce the food waste in the Ithaca, New York area. A major constituent in this community is Ithaca College, a small liberal arts campus with a striving commitment to sustainability. FDN has received do-nations from Ithaca College in the past, but never on a regular basis. FDN wants to improve action rela-tionships, by receiving donations from Ithaca at least once a month from the College. FDN has created an action plan to achieve this goal. The following report will present the key reasons for partnering with Ithaca College, goals, outcomes, and measures for our initiative, and a detailed timeline of our steps.

Organizational HistoryAt 6-years old, Sara Pines quickly learned about the trauma of downward mobility after her father's death. Growing up poor and unaware of where the next meal would come from, her life was not easy, but she perse-vered and was able to graduate from Brooklyn college and later Cornell University with her masters in Social Work. After establishing herself in the City of Ithaca, Sara began volunteering as a cook at Loaves and Fishes community kitchen preparing meals for the homeless. During her time there, she and other members went on a trip to visit migrant labor camps. While on this trip, Sara was able to see how the migrant neighbors were living and didn’t like what she saw, it almost reminded her of the upbringing she was exposed to.

Sara then started to collect donations from Ithaca to deliver to those labor camps, despite the fact that she was lacking a driver and gas money. This experience is what encouraged Pines to start the Friendship Dona-tions Network (FDN) in 1988. It’s aim is to redistribute food that would otherwise be thrown away by stores and farms, and instead give to neighborhoods in need. FDN first started helping migrant farm workers in 112 migrant labor camps without necessities. She accomplished this through her network of volunteers who would pick up donations of perishable food and deliver them to pantries and programs that serve 2,100 people weekly. In an Ithaca Times article she said, “I’d go to the back of supermarkets that are no longer in existence, and they’d have these 4-by-10 foot sheds where they put the day-old food. Day-old cake and bread, produce, dairy, delicatessen,—everything,” Pines said. “They’d pile it up in a mountain and later in the day the garbage truck came and took it all away. Only I preceded the garbage truck. [The stores] had no idea I was doing this.” She was determined to save people from their hunger and wasn’t afraid to jump over obstacles to complete her goal.

FDN saves 500,000 pounds of food from the landfills each year. That translates into 250 tons! By 1992, ser-vices expanded to Ithaca and surrounding communities. At least 30 programs pick up fresh perishable food donated by area donors and deliver free food to low-wage work sites and rural poor. FDN also provides a teaching model, which practices to save nutritious food from being dumped and instead, direct it to those in need. Most pantries are held weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly; the one in Ithaca and nearby communities holds a pantry everyday of the week including weekends. Even though FDN is able to save large amounts of food, Program Coordinator, Meaghan Sheehan-Rosen explained in the Ithaca Times article that it’s important to stay true

22


to the mission Sara Pines created. “We all want to stay true to the mission Sara created. There’s a lot of food still being wasted, and we want to stay close to that mission. Because we’re small, we have a lot of flexibili-ty to respond quickly.” Each pantry receives about 1,000-1,500 pounds of mostly fresh food including fruits, vegetables, assorted breads and pastries, assorted groceries, dairy and deli items, eggs, pizzas, and much more!

FDN collects 10,000-12,000 pounds of food per week and even more on holidays. This translates into $2,000-$4,000 per day and about $1.2-1.5 million per year with increases during the holidays and harvest time. FDN officially became a nonprofit organization on September 7, 2010. Donations are tax deductible and we are a non-denominational organization that does not promote any messages. We respond quickly when food becomes available and make sure it is distributed within one or more hours on the day it is picked up. “We’ve never had any problem with the donations, and we feed 2,000 people a week,” Pines said. There are Good Samaritan food-donation laws on both the state and federal level that protect retailers who donate produce in good faith from liability if someone might get sick. Other retailers have stopped giving out dairy and produce, leaving only the less nutritious breads and cakes.” If it weren’t organizations such as FDN, donations would most likely be discarded and contribute to environmental issues and increased hunger.

Fresh produce, unprocessed food, and whole grains are crucial in decreasing childhood obesity and other improving general health.“We have to continue to connect with food donors and make sure we get more than just bakery items,” Rosen said. “There’s something of an ugly fruit and vegetable movement going on. We have to teach how to use imperfect foods, that with use-by dates there’s not really a connection to whether the food is good.” FDN strives to bridge the gap between excess food waste and hunger in hopes of transforming the wasteful nature in our society. We also strive to be a central place donors can call to donate foods that will be wasted while also informing how to reduce, rescue and recycle good food. The difference between FDN and other food banks is that we don’t charge member programs for overhead per pound of package food. At FDN we never pay for food, in fact, we encourage our programs to become members of a food bank so that food can be distributed to more than one place. By encouraging donors to spread their food to other places, they can offer their services to a greater variety of people.

23


Proposed Initiative Statement

Friendship Donations Network, Ithaca’s local community food rescue organization, organizes food rescue missions from local grocery stores, farms and restaurants. We save edible and nutritious food that would otherwise be tossed in a landfill and redistribute to community kitchens and food pantries that are helping to eliminate hunger in Tompkins county. Ultimately this reduces the amount of food that ends up in landfills and the pollution from methane emissions produced by rotting scraps.

By establishing a relationship between Friendship Donations Network with the help of current Ithaca Col-lege student organizations currently attempting to reduce on campus food waste through food rescue meth-ods we can eliminate food waste by 50% of the current amount that is being wasted. Through this combined support and efforts, on campus food waste can be reduced and alternatives can be created to rescue on cam-pus food through distribution to local food banks and pantries.

24


Statement of Need Friendship Donations Network’s rescues food considered to be “excess” and designated to be sent to landfills by rescuing it then giving those nutritious leftovers to local pantries and community kitchens. This food is saved from wasting away in our local landfill and put to use by feeding our community’s hungry.

Ithaca College is known as a higher education institution that aims to provide students with the knowledge and resources to have successful lives after college through rigorous academic discourse and student leader-ship opportunities. While students spend time learning valuable life tools, they are also living, sleeping and eating on the same campus in which they are learning. Ultimately, the undergraduate lifestyle that exists on Ithaca College’s campus is contributing to the larger food waste issue cycle.

College students on average will generate 142 pounds of food waste each year while living on campus and eating in residential dining halls. For Ithaca College, with a student population of roughly 6,700 students, the potential food waste generated on campus equates to 951,400 pounds per year.

Ithaca College operates three residential dining halls, several retail dining outlets and grab and go options that all offer students options to dine while they spend time on campus. Throughout these various locations on campus a total of 3,000 pounds of food waste is generated everyday on Ithaca College’s campus. Within the three dining halls, Campus Center, Terraces and Towers, the food waste created there is higher than retail es-tablishments. The quantity of food that is generated to feed the population of students on campus who use and rely on these services often outweighs the actual demand for food. Individual students will toss out 30-40% of the food they take from the cafeteria without eating any or all of it. This stems from the design of these cafete-rias which are run buffet style, which allows students to perceive food as limitless and never ending, encour-aging them to often take more on their plates than they will actually consume.

This excess is then discarded and contributes to the food waste issue on Ithaca College’s campus and ulti-mately the one that Americans are facing. In a country where 1 in 6 Americans face food insecurities, the overwhelming amount that is being scrapped on campus is alarming and can be put to good use in other ways besides simply taking up limited space in our landfills and degrading the environment.

Friendship Donations Network’s goals can directly take action against the food waste that occurs on Ithaca College’s campus through developing a collaborative relationship and instituting a shared incentive between students on campus and FDN who both share the common goal of reducing food waste.

25


Action Plan

26


Collaborative efforts between community organizations, Friendship Donations Network and student ran on campus food rescue clubs, like Stop Wasting Ithaca’s Food Today, (SWIFT), Resource and Environmental Management Program (REMP) and Ithaca College Environmen-tal Society (ICES) have several measurable goals that can be attained within four quarters after they have been enacted:

Network and dialogue between food rescue organizations and on campus dining halls and food retail outlets,

Create on campus policies that encourage sustainable patterns that will combat food waste and

Become a community resource and knowledge base that allows for other higher educa-tion institutions to model their own food waste reduction plans around some of the func-tionable methods instituted at Ithaca College.

Goals and Objectives

Goal 1: Create Networks and Dialogues between food rescue organizations on campus and Ithaca College food sources:

Friendship Donations Network and on campus student ran clubs, like SWIFT, who share similar goals of food waste reduction will start dialogues with Ithaca College’s dining halls and food retail establishments.

Task 1: Contact Sodexo administrators to organize and implement an efficient order to organize, which on campus locations and programs to work with initially to start independent food rescue hubs with each area.

Task 2: Implement food rescue plans for each of the dining halls, the catering program and food retail services.

Goal 2: Create on campus policies and sustainability goals for campus wide food waste reduction to occur:

By creating on campus food waste reduction policies and sustainability efforts through administration, encouragement to support food rescue goals between FDN and students working to reduce food waste on campus will increase. Creating official support for these plans will allow for wide spread campus knowledge about food waste reduction and food rescue initiatives.

Task 1: Friendship Donations Network supporting on campus organizations who are spearheading the task of food rescue and campus food waste reduction will help when generating food waste re duction policies.

Task 2: Create strong networks between administrators and clubs that are essential in supporting and creating a more sustainable Ithaca College campus through policy and see them implemented.

27


Task 3: Generate off campus community support through Tompkins County waste reduction and recycling programs to emphasize a community connection and how these policies will benefit the community at large and not just Ithaca College’s community.

Goal 3: Become a community resource between Ithaca College and other higher education institutions to model their own food waste reduction and rescue plans from functional aspects of Ithaca College’s model.

Task 1: Make the model available and methods successfully used on Ithaca College’s campus to sustainably reduce and rescue food waste to other institutions.

Task 2: Connect with other campuses in the region to generate dialogues about what is being done on each campus in terms of sustainable efforts to reduce and rescue food.

Task 3: Hold a regional conference about the topic of food waste reduction for various insti tutions and organizations to come together and network about what they are each specifically doing. Sharing and spreading methods and plans between each other will encourage a greater dialogue about this pressing issue of food waste within communities.

Task 4: Raise national profile about the work being done at Friendship Donations Network based on the success of food waste reduction plan which was implemented at Ithaca College.

Task 5: Reach out to Office of Civic Engagement at Ithaca College to implement further commu nity organized actions that will reduce food waste at Ithaca College and within Ithaca at large.

28


Tasks and Timeline1st Quarter

· Establish a policy that incentivizes participation in food waste reduction, relief and sustainability on campus, by creating a positive impact on campus culture. Students will be more educated about sustain-ability in terms of food waste. This incentive, will motivate students to achieve the goal of sustaining. · Create feedback loop to change sustainability on campus. Receiving feedback from students and fac-ulty/staff is a great way to figure out what students want to see, what they don’t know, and how the things that they want and need can be implemented through classes or programs.

Possible contacts include: · Mark Darling—Sustainability office · Danine Dibble—Catering · Tara Gianfrate—Catering Manager

2nd Quarter

· Reach out to food outlets on campus. Everyday various outlets on campus are continuously wasting good food that could go to people in need. If FDN tapped into these vendors, it could decrease on campus waste and help hungry people in the community. Vendors on campus include dining halls, retail spots, and cater-ing.

· Contact Chef John Molina at Terraces to explore available possibilities and receive recommendations for next steps. In order to tackle dining halls, FDN must take it one dining hall at a time. It is unrealistic to tackle all of them at one time as each dining hall may have its own policy for how they handle food. FDN would like to tackle these spots in this order:

o Dining halls—recover leftover food that is still wrapped but did not make it to the entrance of the dining hall. o Catering—take leftover platters that people were not touched, making sure they are still wrapped. o Retail spots (Pub, Macs, Subconnection)—figuring out ways in which to save food that doesn’t come out of these places and/or items that are not selling, how could those items make it to FDN community partners.

29


Overall Outcome: create a stronger relationship between Ithaca College and FDN by increas-ing partnership with already existing sustainability and food waste organizations on campus.

3rd Quarter

· Work with on campus student organizations. Instead of FDN coming to campus and bombarding IC with its sustainability plan, it would be in its best interest to connect with clubs on campus that have a similar mission and collaborate with them to bring awareness to students. o Resource and Environmental Management Program (REMP): works to create a more s ustainable living and learning experience on campus. o Ithaca College Environmental Society (ICES): raises awareness of sustainability issues while promoting environmentally responsible behaviors. o Stop Wasting Ithaca’s Food Today (SWIFT): works closely with IC Dining Services and Tompkins County Food Distribution Network to repackage food from dining halls into indi vidual meals and the deliver meals to local food pantries.

· Explore collaboration possibilities with Tompkins County Solid Waste and Recycling Division. Not only build a relationship with Ithaca College, but also creating a stronger one with the community to get as many allies as possible. Contacts include:

o Kat McCarthy o LeanPath

4th Quarter

· Become a resource for other institutions. Create allies and educate other organizations on sustainability and gives tips and suggestions on how to be successful. o Share resources (model) o Connect with other campuses

· Hold a conference on food waste on Ithaca College campus. Get students informed and get them educated.

· Connect with Edible Finger Lakes

· Help Raise National Profile

· Connect with Office of Civic Engagement o Pat Spencer

30


Impact StatementThe Friendship Donations Network ultimately seeks to create a more sustainable community. Ithaca Should be sustainable not only environmentally with their food restoration but also morally. Environmen-tally they are saving thousands of pounds of food a week that would end up in a landfill. Landfills create tons of methane, a harmful greenhouse gas. Smaller landfills means less methane and a healthier world. While making world healthier they are also creating sustainable livelihood in the Ithaca community. The rescued food gets distributed to those in need in the greater Ithaca Area. FDN is ensuring those who are hungry will get the help they deserve.

Now, in looking at the sustainability of the business itself, The Friendship Donations Network has always prided itself in operating with very little overhead. Their budget will remain as small as it can, focusing more on the work they do then the money they spend. It comes down to matters such as creating a freezer called the coolbot that will run on about 10 cents a day.

It is all about sustainability for FDN. They understand that the world needs to be supported in a different way. They are fighting to help this instability by creating a small task force to end food waste in the greater Ithaca area.

Key Personnel and Staffing Meaghan Sheehan Rosen—Program Coordinator

SWIFT—Program Partner Volunteers—Participants

31


The outcomes that will be generated from the set of goals listed will strengthen the bond between the Ithaca College and Friendship Donations Network. This bond will be mutually beneficial, reducing and rescuing the large amount of food waste that is generated by the student body at Ithaca College, fulfill-ing the sustainable goals set in place by the Ithaca College administration and creating a greater reach of Friendship Donations Network’s mission to reduce and rescue food within the community. Friendship Donations Network currently is successful in tackling community created food waste and distributing that food to other organizations that will help the community’s hungry. By tackling the food waste coming from a large institution like Ithaca College, the mission and goals of Friendship Donations Network will be even more impactful for the Tompkins County community.

Evaluation Plan

Dissemination Plan

Future Funding Statement

The Friendship Donation Network must keep the conversation alive. They must ensure that people are al-ways being conscious of the needs of their community. FDN will continue to produce their newsletter, and send it out to those in the community. They will also be quick to produce press releases on a regular basis. If the relationship with Ithaca College really soars, there will be even larger influxes of food coming into FDN. Finally FDN will become more active on their social media site, Facebook. Facebook is the a large social media site that caters to a very large audience. They will be able to engage the older generations, and also the younger generation that are getting introduced to FDN. There they will be able to post updates about FDN but also about food waste in general.

FDN would like to continue progressing in the Ithaca Community and hopes that in 5-10 years, there will be significant changes to the organization while keeping the same motto. We would like to see FDN build a strong relationship with Ithaca College and rescue unused food from their dining halls. We want to get in touch with student organizations that deal with food waste and sustainability such as REMP and SWIFT. Help them build on campus, give them resources, and making long lasting connections that will create a permanent system for rescuing food.

Moving forward, we would also like to implement a new job position. This new position will be essential in the next few years due to the growth of volunteership FDN hopes to see with the connection of Ithaca College. The Volunteer Coordinator will be a paid position alongside the Program Coordinator. The duties for this job will mainly be obtaining volunteers, tracking down the hours they give, and keeping retention of those volunteers. By doing this, it will relieve some stress of the Program Coordinator while also helping the organization as there will now be two people making sure everything runs smoothly.

32


ConclusionThe set of goals that we have set forth for Friendship Donations Network hold true to the organi-zation's mission and values. For future food to be rescued and used by community members, the FDN mission and values of doing a lot for a little need to be at the forefront of all future connec-tions made with other institutions.

With the growing need, environmentally and socially, for food rescue missions to grow in frequen-cy, the work that FDN does will be heavily relied on. The strong volunteer base that orchestrates the movement of donated food between grocers and community food pantries is what makes food rescue a possibility and ensures the continuation of community work to be done by FDN. Too many hungry people and the need to make our landfills not fill up with nutritious and edible food, drives FDN’s volunteer base to do their duties everyday. FDN’s spacious facilities offer a place in which various community organizations can pick and choose food to give to the people they serve everyday.

Our goals of continuing food rescue from more local institutions like Ithaca College and the amount of food that still is being wasted while people in our own community go hungry, drives the sustainable, environmental and socially oriented FDN to always be a community resource for those who rely on them.

33


Budget Summary

34


Budget NarrativeOur costs to function and maintain facilities are listed below. These costs are kept to a strict minimal over-head. This is a goal of ours, as we pride ourselves in being a small grassroots organization that functions largely on volunteer labor and donations. However, there are some costs that we still need to address, for ex-ample, the costs of keeping our facilities running including our cooler for perishable foods, office supplies, fundraising tools, volunteer recognition and gas cards for long distance food pickups from donors.

Personnel CostsThese costs include the only paid part-time position within the Friendship Donations Network organization, the Program Coordinator, as well as the total costs of volunteer labor and recognition.

Part-time Program Coordinator: Meaghan Sheehan Rosen $30,170 = 1 year @ $19.34/hr for 25-30 hours weekly, based on Tompkins County living wage calculations.

Volunteer Labor: 24,000 combined volunteer labor hours per year x 19.34/hr = $464,160

Total Personnel Costs: $494,330

Non-personnel CostsThese costs include general supplies, logistics costs, and overhead to maintain our facilities.

Volunteer Recognition: $300 spent on events and gifts for our volunteer base.

Office Supplies: Including printing paper, printer ink, various stationery utensils = $200

Fundraising Costs: Including postage, envelopes, event costs = $400

Gas Money: Includes gas cards for volunteers who rescue food from community donors and deliver to it community partners. Cards are purchased in 20$ increments and are factored into the average miles driven by volunteers during pickup and distribution = $3,000

Rent and Utility Costs: Our CoolBot technology runs on $0.05 per day and our rent costs = $3,000

Food Quality Plastic Bags: $600 for food quality plastic bags to ensure food stays fresh and protected during transit.

Food Rescued: 500,000 pounds per year x $0.09 per pound ($1 per 11 pounds of food) = $45,000 worth of food rescued and redistributed

Total Nonpersonnel Costs: $52,500

35


Appendix

36


Tri-Fold

37


Press Release Phone: 607) 216-9522E-mail: [email protected] News ReleaseFriendship Donations Network1013 West Martin Luther King, Jr. / State StreetIthaca, NY 14850

Friendship Donations Network Ready to Take On Feds Call to Action in Addressing Nation’s Food Waste Issue

ITHACA, NY – Last week’s announcement by the Obama Administration set a national goal of reducing food waste by 50% before 2030, a goal that is first of its kind for the country. Ithaca’s Friendship Donations Network is ready to tackle the challenge through their organization’s mission to rescue food otherwise des-tined for landfills.

Friendship Donations Network actively works to reduce the area’s food waste in a way that also fights hunger within Tompkin’s County. The organization applaudes the nation’s initiative to reduce food waste by 2030 and hopes that the new federal goal will create new food donor relationships within the community that will result in more food being rescued from landfills and ending in the hands of those who face hunger.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection issued this goal last week as a national challenge to all Americans who throw away a combined 133 billion pounds of food every year. To put that number into an imaginable figure, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says that “is enough to fill the Sears (Willis) Tower, 44 times,” (NPR). A large chunk of the food being prematurely disposed of is still complete-ly edible but due to unclear definitions of when food really “goes bad” or is unable to eat, people toss it. This stems from a large misconception about what American food consumers deem as still edible based on vague definitions of what manufacturers label as “best by” dates.

This new challenge is wholeheartedly being supported by the local Friendship Donations Network organi-zation that has been fulfilling its mission goals of reducing local food waste since 1988. The organization founded by Sara Pines has been actively and passionately rescuing food otherwise destined for the landfill from local grocers, farmers and CSAs. The food saved gets directly distributed to local food pantries and community programs that feed the local community’s hungry.

This new federal initiative will be a new avenue in which FDN can round-up community support to tackle the food waste issue together. There is still a lot of food out there that is in need of rescuing. Many farms and restaurants often have a reputation for throwing away food at alarmingly high rates because it is per-ceived as being unfit for customer consumption. The need for a rethinking of how we handle our food waste is a huge call to action for FDN. Through educating the community and reaching out to new food donors, FDN hopes to make even more of an impact in the nationwide goal to keep good food in the hands of neigh-bors instead of landfills.

#

38


Newsletter

39


40


Solicitation LetterScott Williams Operations ManagerIthaca College Dining Services [email protected]

Dear Mr. Williams,

As Thanksgiving rounds corner, you are most likely starting to plan those holiday meals for the three dining halls on the Ithaca College Campus. With students stressed out with class, you will be providing them com-fort. Literally giving them the taste of the holidays and reminding them that home is not far away. You will provide these holiday meals to over 5,500 students, providing a truly amazing service.

However, you are unable to feed all of the young people you want to. Think of how many young people will go without a proper meal over this holiday season. There are over 500 young people in Ithaca that are home-less. This is over 500 that are not getting the proper nourishment.

Here is where we at the Friendship Donation Network can Step in. With your help we can aid in feeding these people. Our mission as an organization is to rescue fresh nutritious food from stores and farms that would otherwise be thrown away and redistribute it to our neighbors in need. There is a healthy amount of food that can go to waste in a college dining hall and this is food that has not necessary gone bad, it just can no longer be served. We have the ability to take this food off of your hands and are asking to rescue this food on the Ithaca College Campus.

We know that Ithaca College can give away food from the dining halls that has “gone to waste.” Last year during the end of the Holiday Season Ithaca College donated food alongside Cornell. However, we don’t want to just help you once a year. By donating food on a more regular basis we will be helping you reduce your food waste in general. Reducing food waste is a fantastic way to live more sustainably and we know Ithaca College has a big commitment to sustainability. In an environmentally sustainable manner you will reduce large amounts of waste in landfills. In an economic sense donating will also lower costs. You will not have to pay to get the food into the landfill and donating to Friendship Donation Network will not cost you any money. We promise to come with a team of volunteers to pick up the food, to then distribute it to the community.

If you want to help an organization feed people in need within our community and help yourself in reduc-ing food waste and costs on campus, please email [email protected]. We hope you are just as committed to reducing the food waste in Ithaca as we are.

Sincerely,

Meaghan Sheehan Rosen Program CoordinatorFriendship Donation Network

41


Ithaca Times Cover StoryPosted: Tuesday, November 24, 2015 6:00 am | Updated: 12:59 pm, Sun Dec 6, 2015.Josh Brokaw [email protected]’s a lot of so-called trash out there which is perfectly good for the taking and the eating. Long before America knew that a freegan was someone who didn’t see the need to buy food when edibles fill dumpsters behind grocery stores, Sara Pines was plucking that perfectly good food from the trash and giving it to those in need.

“What do you mean, do I know what ‘dumpster diving’ means?” the 78-year-old Pines said during a recent interview. “That’s my middle name.”

After she founded the Friendship Donations Network in 1988, Pines said she learned when to go looking for food put out for the garbage man by grocery stores who didn’t understand the value they were wasting.

“I’d go to the back of supermarkets that are no longer in existence, and they’d have these 4-by-10 foot sheds where they put the day-old food. Day-old cake and bread, produce, dairy, delicatessen,—everything,” Pines said. “They’d pile it up in a mountain and later in the day the garbage truck came and took it all away. Only I preceded the garbage truck. [The stores] had no idea I was doing this.

“Every food source culls the food in the morning so everything is beautiful by 8 o’clock,” Pines continued. “That’s a good time to go, after they cull it. But for the rest of the day it keeps coming in. The truck never caught up with me. I’d come back later that day, at night, in the morning. They kept throwing food out the whole day.”

The Friendship Donations Network (FDN) for years was nothing more than Pines picking what she could and coordinating volunteers to pick up food donations and take them to pantries, to Loaves & Fishes, to wherever they could be distributed to the needy or stored for soon-enough use. Transport was and is provided by vol-unteers—Pines’ own old Volvo station wagon could hold 18 banana boxes full of food, she found.

FDN now has its own storage space in the Just BeCause center on West State Street, created by Jerry Dietz of CSP Management in memory of his wife Judy. There’s a modestly-sized cooler, now crisp with the smell of apples donated from Cornell’s orchards. A truck-sized trailer built into their space is rich with the smell of root vegetables and holds some canned goods in reserve for emergencies. The space allows FDN to take on overflow items when big donations happen. When the colleges go out on breaks, FDN picks up what it can from dining services that would otherwise be thrown away. A “new foray” for FDN has been taking prepared food donations from the Statler Hotel, which had been composting everything until last November, according to current FDN director Meaghan Sheehan Rosen.

FDN started the “Food Hub” program three years ago, which allows people who might have a little extra produce in their garden to donate to a local drop-off location. FDN now touches on six counties in about a 40-mile radius and provides about 30 programs with food, Rosen said.

42


The local food-saving program is growing, but there are no plans to “create anything big and extravagant,” Rosen said. “We all want to stay true to the mission Sara created. There’s a lot of food still being wasted, and we want to stay close to that mission. Because we’re small, we have a lot of flexibility to respond quickly.”

Though Pines and FDN have made progress in educating retailers and consumers about how much of our abundance goes to waste that is just fine for eating, there’s a long way to go yet.

“We have to continue to connect with food donors and make sure we get more than just bakery items,” Rosen said. “There’s something of an ugly fruit and vegetable movement going on. We have to teach how to use im-perfect foods, that with use-by dates there’s not really a connection to whether the food is good.”

Pines, for her part, won’t be satisfied until all the waste is eliminated and all the people who are hungry get their share of the abundance that we can be thankful grows in this region.

Give Us Your Milk, Your Yogurt, ...

FDN began in 1988 when Pines visited migrant labor camps in the Sodus area and saw the need for food and everything else there.

“I had a verbal agreement with a migrant advocacy group that I would collect whatever they needed,” Pines said. “The catch is you need to come and get it, because they were 88 miles from me. That hobbled along for two or three years, but they couldn’t get the gas money, the transportation, the drivers, and I was sending vol-unteers constantly to Sodus. I frantically looked for other pantries or other sources that would take the food, and it drew a lot of media attention that got the word out. Slowly, slowly, slowly, we built it up.”

When Pines approached Wegman’s Ithaca location for donations in the early ‘90s, they had “never given food to anyone. It was an alien word to them,” she said. “I suggested they try it for one month to see how it works. They took it to corporate and said ‘We can try it.’ It never stopped. That doubled or tripled our quantity, with them giving us three, four, five, 600 pounds of everything every day.”

When Pines came with her request, Wegman’s manager Gary Woloszyn told her, “We had many worthy or-ganizations that requested the same things, and it was difficult for us to say yes to one organization but have nothing left for the others.”

“Sara offered to become a “hub” for the redistribution of the products, and we began our decades-long rela-tionship,” Woloszyn said. “She created a systematic ‘daily pickup’ system with hundreds of volunteers to help the program be so successful.”

From about 1993 until FDN found their own space a couple years ago, volunteers sorted every day’s take on the Wegman’s loading dock. Where Pines and Rosen say there’s still work to be done is that Wegman’s is the only store around to donate “everything”—not only bread and sweets, but produce and dairy too.

“We’ve never had any problem with the donations, and we feed 2,000 people a week,” Pines said. There are Good Samaritan food-donation laws on both the state and federal level that protect retailers who donate pro-duce in good faith from liability if someone might get sick. Other retailers have stopped giving out dairy and produce, leaving only the less nutritious breads and cakes.

43


“They throw out all of their day-old fruits, vegetables, dairy, and deli,” Pines said. “They refuse to look at the Good Samaritan Act. If you’re saying no, let’s examine why.”

Pines admits it might “take a lot of time to cull food and set it aside in a cooler” and to train three shifts of staff.

“The worst thing is they throw it out. They pay to throw it out,” Pines said.

Woloszyn makes the process sound pretty easy: “Our produce and bakery employees cull their departments every morning of day-old or bruised products,” he said. “These products don’t meet our standards for sale, but they can certainly be used.”

Retailers letting FDN have at more of their waste is a “win-win-win,” Rosen said. “The businesses get a tax write-off, and they’re not paying to get waste hauled away.”

Volunteers also need to learn that they “don’t need to be so perfect and picky,” Pines said.

“Picture-perfect food that can be put in a magazine is what Americans are trained to look for,” she said, “which is why we have to use so much insecticides and chemicals. One of the problems with organic food is it has no insecticides or chemicals, so it won’t last as long and won’t look as good a day or two later, which is when we get the food. That’s an excellent byproduct of people wanting organic food.

“You have the kind of volunteer who looks at the food and says ‘That apple has a little speck in it,’” Pines continued. “I said, ‘Sweetie, if we began to throw out the apples with specks, we’re going to have nothing. You take a little knife and just take out the bad spot, and it’s beautiful. Or you put it in a pot with several quarts of water and a bouillon cube and make a soup out of it.”

Another large part of the FDN mission, besides educating stores and volunteers, is giving cooking lessons to the people who receive the food—preferably fresh—for they may have no idea what to do with a bag of onions or leafy greens.

You Can Add the Salt and Fat

“From the beginning,” Pines said, “my emphasis was on rescuing good food that would be dumped. Of course I was going to go to fresh, perishable food, because it’s perishable. I don’t think I would’ve got into rescuing food if it was all cans.”

While she had “no qualms about diving anywhere,” Pines said she “scrupulously checked” with Cornell Cooperative Extension and the U.S. Department of Agriculture for their food safety guidelines. Getting fresh food to people who don’t have much of a shopping budget not only saves waste, it increases the nutrient val-ue of the fuel folks are putting into their bodies.

“Cans contain a lot of salt and don’t taste that good,” Pines said. “Fresh, perishable food is nutritious, and tastier, and you can do so much with it. You can put in as much salt, sugar, and fat as you want, but prepared food usually [already] has a high quantity of sugar, salt, and fat.”

Pines has been looking for years for a dry cereal that takes it easy on the sugar.

44


“One of the reasons poor people tend to be so fat is every dry cereal I’ve seen contains sugar. There’s something in our brain that gets addicted to sugar early on, so every company puts sugar into their food. The worst enemy of nutritious food is the food industry: every time someone’s tried to publish on the industry effects [on nutrition], they’ve killed it through lobbying.”

Pines is not so much of a zealot for healthy food that it obstructs her mission of saving waste. One friend who volunteered for Pines was fired “on the spot” after she turned down 500 pounds of Ghiradelli choco-late.

Pines is not so much of a zealot for healthy food that it obstructs her mission of saving waste. One friend who volunteered for Pines was fired “on the spot” after she turned down 500 pounds of Ghiradelli choco-late.

“She was very addicted to sugar, and it made her sick,” Pines said. “There was a Wegman’s representative for Ghiradelli who said ‘I have 500 pounds of chocolate I’d like to donate.’ She said, ‘Oh, no, we don’t take sugar.’ I had a fit. I told her, ‘Don’t ever make that judgment. People have a right to eat sugar, if they want to have a treat and rot their teeth.’”

Teaching people how to use unfamiliar but healthy foods is part of the mission for FDN, both Pines and Rosen said. The Groton “Healthy Tuesday” at the village library is one example Rosen gives of a program that educates through cooking up a dish for people to try. Pines said she’s always an advocate of pantries and other food providers giving out samples. Booklets with instructions and recipes, like the one put out by Cooperative Extension on how to use kale, are also helpful.

“Greens like kale and spinach are very expensive in the supermarket,” Pines said. “If people aren’t used to it, they’re not going to touch it. There are people who don’t even know how to use a potato unless it’s in a can. Spinach, what does it take? You wash the damn stuff, put it in a pot with a minimal amount of water, steam it or cook it for two minutes, and it’s done.”

Leave It On The Porch, Please

FDN’s newest venture is the “neighborhood food hubs,” which are nothing more than a cooler put out on a volunteer’s porch or yard as a drop box for food which needs using.

“If you’re growing food in a garden, and you have a little bit of extra tomatoes or peas, you’re not going to bring them here,” said Linda Myers, editor of the FDN newsletter. “Or if you have a CSA share and you can’t get it that week, the hubs are great.”

The program started three years ago with four hubs, with volunteers bringing the coolers full of produce and other donations to the Just BeCause center for sorting and distribution. Over 11,000 pounds of food have been donated through the program so far—which is still just a sliver of the more than half-million pounds of food FDN saves every year.

“The hubs have got us a little bit more on the map,” Rosen said. “FDN has always been working out of the back entrances of stores.”

45


The hubs have also increased neighbor-to-neighbor sharing, Rosen said; with 15 of them now, food that comes to the hub in Lodi stays in Lodi, and that which comes to Danby stays in Danby.

“It allows people the joy of donating a gift of their labor, knowing it will give to people who need it, right in their community,” Myers said.

Over her whole life, Pines has kept the memory of growing up poor. She had a “single, somewhat incompetent mother” from the age of 4 when her father passed, and said she “looked around and said, ‘This isn’t fun. I’m not going to be poor.’”

Pines completed a doctorate and married “someone quite educated” in her husband Aaron, which suddenly put her “in the middle-class world in my early 20s.”

“I never wanted anything. I’m not a material person,” Pines said. “I always had a consciousness of people who don’t have resources. I don’t like waste, I never liked waste, and if you don’t like waste, what are you going to do about it?”

Though Pines is “retired,” she still gets calls from Rosen for advice.

“She has an amazing ability to hone in on where there’s a need and how to serve,” Myers said. “Sara talks to you as a lifelong friend and says, ‘Do you know anybody who needs this?’”

“Wherever I am, if I’m going to stay there a few months or more, I’ll start a donations network,” Pines said. In 1986 she visited Nepal and asked tourists for their excess food, medicine, and clothing, which she took to one of Mother Teresa’s homes for sick and dying children in a taxi. And now that she’s living at Kendal at Ithaca, she has advertisements on the in-room television network asking people to donate food to a box she leaves in the coat room, which then goes to FDN. She also comes into a goodly number of mattresses from Kendal res-idents who are moving, since they can’t be sold by reuse stores under state law, and she gives those to people “who are sleeping on the damn floor.”

“I wouldn’t dream of buying new. It’s against my principles of sustainability,” Pines said. “I believe in peace and not violence, and I believe throwing out food is violence. It’s taking it away from people who need it, whose health is going to be impaired because they’re not getting what they need.”

You can call the Friendship Donations Network at 216-9522, email [email protected], and visit the website at friendshipdonations.org. •

friendship donation network proposal

Government & Nonprofit