Western students launch "Food Rescue" program
As a new initiative, Western University
students have launched a
food rescue program in London. The
program called reHarvest, is to get
unused food onto the tables of those
in need. They just need some volunteers
within London to help them out
to deliver the food.
“The program reHarvest is one of our biggest goals that takes so long to launch, we are constructing our mission statement together with the charities because we wanted something sustainable, a typical students’ initiative that would run for a really long time,” said Jasmine Wang, co-founder of reHarvest. “We have been working on it since July, we actually just launched on the first of January, so we are on our recruiting process now.”
In developed countries, about a third of all food produced is lost or wasted from farm to fork, according to the National Zero Waste Council.
According to a recent report by the London Poverty Research Centre, there are 26,000 Londoners who can’t afford consistent access to healthy meals.
ReHarvest was launched on the belief that all people deserve access to healthy, nutritious food. They have seven business participants including the Western Fair Farmers’ Markets and the Old East Village Grocer, who have agreed to donate to the program.
The charities that benefit by the program are the London Intercommunity Health Centre and South London Neighbourhood Resource Centre.
“The whole purpose of reHarvest is to recruit third party volunteers who come with their own cars and they transport food from businesses to charities that deliver food, education and food legacy programming,” Wang said. “We are aiming to fill that gap in the middle by communicating with the businesses because businesses don’t have enough time to care about their food and some of them even think that they are liable for the food they donate, which is not true.”
Vinayak Thirunavukarasu, a first year student at Western University, shared his opinion about the food rescue program.
“Food is the basic need for human beings. This is a great program that helps a lot of people get their food, [it] also provides an opportunity for the students to [use] their energy and time in [the] best possible way.”
ReHarvest is helping small charities that help people to get their basic needs. The food from the food banks is not always healthy and the group wanted to help out people who need healthy food.
Anyone from the London community is welcome to volunteer to transport foods from the businesses to charities, which will usually be around a 30-minute shift.
“I think even if people are excited about the work that we are doing, I just want to encourage all students to take the initiative within the London community because I think it’s really important for the students to get involved, feel privileged about being in Canada,” Wang said.
For more information about re- Harvest or interested in volunteering as a delivery driver visit their website at reharvest.ca or email them at foodrescuelondon@gmail.com.
“The program reHarvest is one of our biggest goals that takes so long to launch, we are constructing our mission statement together with the charities because we wanted something sustainable, a typical students’ initiative that would run for a really long time,” said Jasmine Wang, co-founder of reHarvest. “We have been working on it since July, we actually just launched on the first of January, so we are on our recruiting process now.”
In developed countries, about a third of all food produced is lost or wasted from farm to fork, according to the National Zero Waste Council.
According to a recent report by the London Poverty Research Centre, there are 26,000 Londoners who can’t afford consistent access to healthy meals.
ReHarvest was launched on the belief that all people deserve access to healthy, nutritious food. They have seven business participants including the Western Fair Farmers’ Markets and the Old East Village Grocer, who have agreed to donate to the program.
The charities that benefit by the program are the London Intercommunity Health Centre and South London Neighbourhood Resource Centre.
“The whole purpose of reHarvest is to recruit third party volunteers who come with their own cars and they transport food from businesses to charities that deliver food, education and food legacy programming,” Wang said. “We are aiming to fill that gap in the middle by communicating with the businesses because businesses don’t have enough time to care about their food and some of them even think that they are liable for the food they donate, which is not true.”
Vinayak Thirunavukarasu, a first year student at Western University, shared his opinion about the food rescue program.
“Food is the basic need for human beings. This is a great program that helps a lot of people get their food, [it] also provides an opportunity for the students to [use] their energy and time in [the] best possible way.”
ReHarvest is helping small charities that help people to get their basic needs. The food from the food banks is not always healthy and the group wanted to help out people who need healthy food.
Anyone from the London community is welcome to volunteer to transport foods from the businesses to charities, which will usually be around a 30-minute shift.
“I think even if people are excited about the work that we are doing, I just want to encourage all students to take the initiative within the London community because I think it’s really important for the students to get involved, feel privileged about being in Canada,” Wang said.
For more information about re- Harvest or interested in volunteering as a delivery driver visit their website at reharvest.ca or email them at foodrescuelondon@gmail.com.
