PHOENIX — Nearly 40% of the country’s food supply goes to waste. In Arizona alone, 1.7 million tons of food is thrown away.
And when you have a million people in our state experiencing food insecurity, you can see how all that wasted food can be used to help these families.
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That’s why St. Vincent de Paul has its Food Reclamation Center, to ensure no good food goes to waste.
At St. Vincent De Paul’s Food Reclamation Center in Phoenix, everyone is hard at work to keep this operation running smoothly.
“Lots of caffeine, lots of singing a lot of times, just to get it done,” said April Good, the organization's food reclamation manager.
A lot goes into it.
“We receive thousands of pounds of food on a daily basis, other items as well,” Good said.
And from there, the food goes through a quality control process.
“Afterwards, we’re sending the food out to one of our 80 pantries across northern and central Arizona,” said Good.
Every month, they send about 130,000 pounds of food to their conference community food pantries.
“Lots of dressing… cranberry sauce, green beans, those are like the staples this time of year,” she said.
They also send tens of thousands of food boxes to the pantries.
“Annually, St. Vincent de Paul distributes about 168,000 food boxes to families across central Arizona,” said Good. “It’s just awesome… it’s amazing that we even have numbers that high, that people need that much help, but it’s nice that we’re able to put a little bit of a dent in that.”
From the food reclamation center the food and other items not only go their pantries and shelters, but also their dining rooms.
It’s part of our mission, giving back to the community,” said Good.
In the kitchen, volunteers like Jason Wong, president and CEO of Asian Corporate and Entrepreneur Leaders says helping prepare the food they serve to families in need is so important, not only to give back, but also to build character.
“We wanted to be able to use this opportunity to bring the community together,” Wong said. “To do something more than just you know, getting, but actually giving.”
Good says they have a great team, but they’re always in need of even more volunteers.
“We need volunteers on a regular basis,” she said. “It takes about 20 to run our food box program, so we’re constantly looking for people to come down and help.”
The work they’re doing right now is only continuing the work they do year-round, working toward their ultimate mission.
“Feed. Clothe. House and hal,” said Good.
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