Dranesville Elementary begins Food Rescue Program

"We know that if children start community service early, they won’t view it as just a fad, but as a part of who they are." - Marty Smith, FCPS Cluster One assistant superintendent

During the spring of 2011, Dranesville Elementary School (Herndon) students recognized that a lot of good food was being thrown away after lunch period. Teachers Aimee Conrad and Judy Ballenger discussed over the summer how to prevent good food from going in the trash cans and instead distribute it to needy families in the area who were hungry. It is estimated that one in four Fairfax County students live in homes where hunger and financial worries are an everyday concern. Dranesville Elementary needed a food pantry or organization to partner with them and contacted LINK. LINK, an all volunteer Christian organization, provides food on a daily basis directly to families in Herndon, Sterling and Ashburn. It turned out to be a perfect fit. 

However, there was just one small problem – Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) and the Office of Food and Nutrition Services were hesitant to jump on board with the plan. Congressman Frank Wolf helped introduce legislation that explicitly protected schools from liability and encouraged schools to partner with local food pantries to provide food that is unused. Once the school system developed a letter of understanding, the plan moved forward.

The next task was to find a refrigerator that would hold the unused perishable food such as milk, yogurt, and cheese until it could be picked up. Within 6 hours of putting out a plea for a gently-used refrigerator, one was found and delivered by volunteers to the school.

Dranesville Elementary had the full support of Principal Kathy Manoati and worked with its Student Council Association and the fifth and sixth graders to develop a plan of how to rescue the unused food. They researched the hunger in our area, collected and documented unused food, and put together a method of collecting the food. The students learned that over 5,700 pounds of food had gone uneaten in 2011 and were determined it would be the last year that so much good food go wasted. 

When students finish their lunch, any unopened and uneaten food items such as milk, yogurt, cheese, fruit, dips, and snack items are “recycled” into labeled bins for LINK. Twice a week, volunteers go to Dranesville Elementary and pick up the food and deliver it to the pantry to be packed into outgoing deliveries to families.

On Monday, March 12^th Dranesville Elementary hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony to kickoff their Food Rescue program. Fairfax County Public Schools representatives, Office of Food and Nutrition Services representatives, PTA and School representatives and LINK President, Lisa Lombardozzi attended the event, along with the 5^th and 6^th graders and teachers. A video was presented that highlighted the hunger concerns in our local area, along with statistics of the unused food that had been thrown away.

Marty Smith, FCPS Cluster One assistant superintendent, said this program fulfilled a challenge facing every school, which is to become more involved in the community around them. "What this school is doing is helping their students get an understanding of their place in the community," Smith said. "We know that if children start community service early, they won’t view it as just a fad, but as a part of who they are."

LINK delivers food directly to families Tuesdays through Saturdays all year long and serves approximately 80 families (400 individuals) each month. Typical deliveries contain primarily non-perishable food items. With the addition of the nutritious food from Dranesville Elementary, LINK will be able enhance the abundance of its deliveries to individual families.

On the first day of the program, over 35 milk cartons, 8 juice boxes, 20 containers of yogurt, humus, and cheese, 15 pieces of fruit, and 20 snack items were collected. Approximately one-third of the collection was immediately transferred to outgoing food deliveries to families that very day. The remainder will go to families the following day.

Dranesville Elementary did the hard work of getting through the red tape to make the program work and LINK hopes more schools in Fairfax County and Loudoun County will begin programs that benefit the hungry families in our communities.

LINK will also begin working with Herndon Elementary to coordinate a program similar to the one at Dranesville. With the support of schools in our area and the students who attend those schools, we know that we can make a difference in the amount of food thrown away and turn it into a blessing for families who need help. 

If you would like to help with the School Food pickup process from Dranesville or Herndon Elementary, contact Lisa Lombardozzi (president@linkagainsthunger.org). For more information about LINK, visit our website at www.linkagainsthunger.org.