FUELING THE FOOD RECOVERY

While thousands of football fans clad in red, yellow and black cheered on the Terps on Saturday, six students sporting green shirts worked behind the scenes, collecting extra food from Byrd Stadium's concession stands to donate to two Washington shelters.

The Food Recovery Network, the group of students who collected and delivered the extra meals, aims to eliminate food waste on the campus. The network was founded by Alpha Phi Omega members one year ago and it has since spread its reach from the South Campus Dining Hall to other areas of the campus. Leftovers from the game fed 450 of the district's hungry and homeless people that night.

Along with tackling home football game concessions for the first time Saturday, members of the Food Recovery Network, APO and MaryPIRG stop by the dining hall four times a week to collect food that would otherwise be trashed. Volunteers will soon make weekly rounds in 251 North and The Diner on North Campus, as well.

"We're now going to be expanding that to multiple locations for as many nights as we can," said Food Recovery Network President Evan Ponchick, an operations management and supply chain management major.

Some members of Dining Services said they were glad the initiative reached athletic events.

"It's great so we don't have to throw [the extra food] away, ‘cause in the end of the day it goes in the trash or [is] composted," said Brian Harrison, a Dining Services coordinator who assisted group members Saturday.

And volunteers said it's been easier than expected to get other departments on board with their initiative, starting with Saturday's concessions collection.

"It went really smoothly," junior anthropology and environmental science major Mia Zavalij said. "There was some concessions stands I got nothing from and then there were others with bags full of hot dogs and sausages and buns."

First-time volunteer Andy Xin, a sophomore psychology major, said reaching out to athletics for extra food just made sense.

"I was a little skeptical at first ‘cause it's a big game, but when you compare football to feeding people, it's a nobrainer," Xin said.

Although Dining Services does not track the average number of meals that go to waste each day, Dining Services spokesman Bart Hipple said Food Recovery Network members reported they fed about 7,000 people in the last year. He added the group's efforts have made the department more aware of the amount of food that gets tossed.

"I believe the people on our lines have become more aware of how much food is left over at the end of the night and have been careful of not overproducing at the end of a busy shift," Hipple said.

Dining Services now offers more cooked-to-order options such as the pasta bar and stir-fry station, and employees make only half pans of food as lunch and dinner come to an end, Hipple said.

"Nobody likes to see the food they cook wasted, so we really do our best to gear up toward the beginning of a shift and gear down toward the end," he added.

These and other measures have vastly cut down on waste, Hipple said, compared to years ago when employees prepared all food for dinner ahead of time and often overestimated how much students would buy.

In the past year, Ponchick told group members he saw a decline in the amount of food being collected, Zavalij said.

"His first semester there was a lot more and then the second semester each night we were getting less, so that was a really good thing," she said. "We think [Dining Services] maybe learned a little."

Hipple praised the group for following through on its goals, and said it's worth the extra effort Dining Services makes to save unused food for those in need.

lurye at umdbk dot com