Christina Qawasmy, Sarah Maize, Morgan Livingston and Amanda Wheeler have introduced a new way to help out the community by saving food.

They work with the Food Recovery Network for their class project. These social work students brought the Food Recovery Network to Shippensburg University.

The Food Recovery Network gives the group a $500 grant per semester. This enables the students to buy the supplies to pack up the foods and also funds the food transportation.

The group goes on Fridays to collect leftover food from Reisner Dining Hall. This includes anything from pastas and meats to desserts. Then they take the temperatures of the food and pack it up to bring to The First Church of God on King Street.

The church uses the food for the free community meals that it hosts on Fridays. The students also prepare small boxes of pre-packaged meals for those who need an extra meal to take home.

The group has collected 146.9 pounds of food so far during this semester.

In their contribution to the Food Recovery Network, students get to see how much food people waste and the abilities they have to save food but do not use the opportunities. They also find importance in realizing the abundance of food that is on campus and the lack of food in the community.

“My favorite part about this is knowing that you make a difference and seeing the amount of food saved and also the appreciation of the church,” Qawasmy said.

The group hopes to continue to carry on its work with the Food Recovery Network next year. They also want to spread campus awareness and expand involvement with getting other on-campus organizations participate.

The group members plan to use an on-call method for the next semester.

This will allow the group to evaluate the amount of food that they are given and determine how many people they need to help with the food recovery.

The group will be holding an interest session on April 3 at 6:30 p.m. in CUB Room 105 for anyone who would like to get involved with the Food Recovery Network.

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