Main Line University Hosting Food Waste Summit April 28

Students at a Main Line university are preparing to host the Food Recovery Network (FRN) Regional Summit next week where students from the tri-state area will discuss the topic of fighting food waste and feeding hungry people.

Cabrini University in Radnor will host the daylong summit — Taking Care of the Community.

The summit will welcome students from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware universities to share skills, ideas, and experiences, and participate in a volunteer event around the FRN mission to "fight waste while feeding people."

This year’s regional summit, held on Saturday, April 28 at Cabrini, will focus on college hunger.

The event will be the first-ever FRN regional summit in the Philadelphia area.

Interested students can register for the summit here.

"We look forward to welcoming our fellow university chapters as well as other colleges who would be a great fit for starting a new FRN chapter," Daisy Rodriguez, class of 2020 and Vice President of Cabrini’s FRN Chapter, said. "Students will have the opportunity to share experiences, learn new resources, and network in order to help their peers who may benefit from a food pantry, a garden, or moral support."

Since officially starting the FRN chapter in fall 2017, Cabrini students have already donated more than 3,250 pounds of food, supplying approximately 2,715 meals in only six months.

Recently, the chapter — one of 230 FRN chapters nationwide — has focused its attention to food insecurity on college campuses and has added to its scheduled deliveries the Cabrini Cupboard, the university’s resource for supplying food to students who are in need of meal assistance.

"The issue of hunger on university campuses is enormous," said Tom O’Donnell, Cabrini’s FRN Chapter advisor and faculty fellow for the Engagements with the Common Good course on food insecurity. "I think it’s tremendous that our students are, by my recent inquiry, one of the only FRN chapters helping to prevent food insecurity in both their neighboring communities and right here on campus."

For more information, visit the Cabrini FRN Facebook page.

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