This Elementary School Is Turning Leftover Lunch Food Into Frozen Take-Home Meals For Kids In Need
Elkhart Community Schools, a K-12 school district in Elkhart, Indiana, is teaming with a local nonprofit to make sure that kids are able to eat when they're at home over the weekend, WSBT 22 reports.
Cultivate, a South Bend-based nonprofit, "rescues" unused food. Jim Conklin, president and co-founder of the organization, told WSBT, "Mostly, we rescue food that's been made but never served by catering companies [and] large food service businesses, like the school system. Over-preparing is just part of what happens. We take well-prepared food, combine it with other food and make individual frozen meals out of it."
Natalie Bickel, the supervisor of student services for Elkhart Community Schools, told CNN the pilot program had to "start a little small," because they weren't sure they'd have enough food. Twenty students from Woodland Elementary left school on Friday with an insulated backpack filled with eight individual frozen meals to last them through the weekend.
"The kids were thrilled, staff were crying, kids were so excited," she said. Bickel told CNN that "64% of the more than 12,000 students in the district are eligible for free and reduced price lunch."
Cultivate prepares the meals, each including a protein, vegetable, and starch. The food rescue group goes to five school production kitchens three times a week to collect the food that was prepared, but not served.
Cultivate's co-founder, Randy Z, shared that this type of collaboration with schools has been a "long-term mission" for himself. "I was the kid who went home with no food and didn't eat on the weekends when I was younger."
Cultivate combines the schools' leftover food with other food it has rescued from various chefs, local caterers, hospitals, and businesses. "A meal could consist of a vegetable from the school, protein from the University of Notre Dame, and a starch from the Four Winds Casino," Z told CNN.
Bickel said that she would love to expand the program, which is just getting started, to all 21 schools in the district.
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