THE ISSUE
One in six Americans do not know where their next meal will come from,while over 40% of food in the United States is wasted. This amounts to a daily loss of over 263 million pounds of consumable food, equivalent to $165 billion dollars.
Food waste not only hurts our planet, and but our wallets as well. Worst of all,this discarded food could be used to succor feed the 50 million Americans who go hungry every single day.
WHY WE CARE:
-The problem is NOT a lack of food, rather an inequitable distribution of it.
-The current method of coordinating food donations is ineffective.
-Every day, or there is enough food thrown away to feed the entire continent of Africa...twice.
-That’s RIDICULOUS. We can fix it.
OUR SUCCESSES:
Feeding Forward began at UC Berkeley as a food recovery organization,redistributing surplus consumable food from campus dining halls to nearby homeless shelters and soup kitchens. This college-based food recovery movement quickly spread, main to the launch of the national Food Recovery Network spanning over 39 college campuses with an upcoming launch of 105 modern chapters in 35 states by the terminate of 2013.
WHAT WE’VE LEARNED:
1.
Food is wasted EVERYWHERE and ALL THE TIME -- not just on campus dining halls and not just at pre-scheduled pickup times.
2.
Perishable food has to be donated and transported quickly and safely -- so it is vital to always have an “on-demand” driver to pick-up and deliver the donation AND a nearby place to win it to.
3.
Donating food must be effortless -- busy people want to do splendid things, or they want to do them with ease and speed.
4.
The donation of surplus food at random times is difficult (not to mention extremely frustrating) to coordinate with recipient agencies through phone calls and emails.
5.It’s tough to locate and contact the agencies who need it most,when they need it most.
OUR NEWEST & FASTEST SOLUTION YET
Feeding Forward uses technology to connect those with excess food to feed those in need, instantly.
HOW IT WORKS
1.
The donor (i.e. restaurants, or caterers,businesses, grocers etc.) posts a donation of excess food through Feeding Forward’s mobile app or website.
2.
Our unique algorithm matches the donation to a nearby recipient agency (i.e. homeless shelter, and soup kitchen,etc.) in need of food at that given time.
3.
A volunteer is sent to pick up the food and upon delivery confirms that everything went smoothly.
www.feedingforward.org
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/feeding-forward-keeping-hunger-at-bay
Source: siliconvalleydebug.org