UNC Asheville Dining Services is partnering with a local program, Food Connection, to donate approximately 100 pounds of nutritionally prepared food daily for distribution to Buncombe and Madison County organizations in an effort to reduce hunger and food insecurity.
UNC Asheville’s Brown Hall, which prepares a wide variety of food needed to serve 2,200 cafeteria-style lunch and dinner meals to students, faculty, staff and campus visitors in an average day, is setting aside and donating trays of prepared food that is left over and not served. The university’s dining hall staff packs, labels and refrigerates the food overnight for pick-up the following morning by Food Connection volunteers.
Food Connection gathers surplus food from restaurants and caterers in Asheville and delivers the food via a local taxi service to designated nonprofits. The goal is to reduce food waste and ease the pain of immediate hunger. Food Connection has delivered more than 4,500 meals donated by restaurants and caterers since it began operations in December 2014. UNC Asheville has added dramatically to that total, donating 3,000 meals thus far during the fall semester and bringing the total number of meals delivered by Food Connection to 7,500. It is expected that the university will donate an additional of 9,000-12,000 meals during the remainder of the 2015-16 academic year.
Food Connection was created by Flori Pate, who is also co-founder of Asheville’s DigLocal.com app, with support from Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church and Asheville Taxi. The food received goes to many area assistance organizations including:
- Two Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry programs for the homeless, the Veterans Restoration Quarters and the Steadfast House program for women and children,
- Trinity Place, an emergency Asheville homeless shelter for youth and runaways ages 7-17,
- East Asheville Welcome Table at Groce United Methodist Church, an effort also supported by 10 other churches,
- Be Loved House at Grove Street in downtown Asheville, serving people in poverty and people living in the streets,
- MusicWorks! after-school program at Hall Fletcher Elementary School in West Asheville that strives for social transformation through music education,
- Spring Creek Community Center in Madison County, which provides a food pantry and hunger relief,
- Beacon of Hope Services, providing food and emergency assistance in Marshall.
In addition to its food donations, UNC Asheville’s Dining Services is contributing financially to Food Connection as part of a campaign with the university’s Student Environmental Center to reduce use of disposable cups. For each beverage purchased on campus with the campaign’s reusable cups, Chartwells, which operates dining facilities at UNC Asheville, is donating 15 cents to Food Connection.
“UNC Asheville is proud to partner with Food Connection to provide nutritional meals to those in need,” said Bill Haggard, vice chancellor for student affairs. “Together with Chartwells and local farmers and restaurateurs, we are able to provide a tremendous variety of healthy, delicious food choices on campus, and we are making progress on reducing food and packaging waste. This new partnership brings food that would have been composted directly to hungry people, and we are grateful to Food Connection for their work in making that happen.”
“We are thrilled to add UNC Asheville to our growing list of Food Connection donors,” said Pate. “We are very appreciative of UNC Asheville’s willingness to go the extra mile by taking the time each day to pack, label and donate their surplus food. This is the first large institution Food Connection has worked with and we hope that this will serve as an inspiration for similar organizations to follow suit.”
For more information about Food Connection, visit foodconnection.co, and for information about UNC Asheville Dining Services, visit dineoncampus.com/unca.