As we all know, there is a food shortage everywhere you look. Combining the shortage and inflation, the prices of food and just about everything else has skyrocketed. With these inflated prices and empty shelves, retail locations still have the gall to throw away perfectly good food.
This might be due to their rules and regulations not allowing food to be sold past a specific date; perhaps they need to make room for new inventory. Whatever the case, they are still throwing food the same way they had done, even pre-pandemic or before all this crazy stuff started happening. Some places don’t even allow the workers to take the food home or fish it out of the garbage because they view it as stolen goods if that’s the scenario.
However, one new coordinated effort is working towards a win-win-win on all sides. This innovative idea finds the homeless getting a job, saving that perfect food waste we just mentioned, and donating it to those in need.
This remarkable effort between a triplet of associations in San Diego, California, arrived at a milestone achievement in giving food and giving people who need it the most jobs.
They likewise salvage impeccably good food that would have in any other case wound up in a landfill somewhere while presenting an imaginative model that others around the nation could follow.
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With the backing of the Lucky Duck Foundation, The Salvation Army employs occupants of its destitute helters and helps train them to be food salvage course drivers. From there, they will begin taking on routes where they will go from store to store looking for perfectly good food that has been tossed out by the retail giants and later drops off all the food to a location in San Diego where others who are in need can go pick the food up for free before it goes to waste.
This win-win-win partnership hit an achievement in June, reporting that it had saved the greater part of 1,000,000 pounds of food, and all of the Salvation Army occupants who have taken part in this program have now become full-time employees and are holding the job down. However, most of them enjoy the job and the impact they are taking part in.
One such employee – Daniel Rocha – had been homeless for quite some time, found the employment opportunity, and decided to do something about his situation. It didn’t matter how he got where he was; all he knew was that he would get up and work to turn things around. So he seized the opportunity to get the job and was successful.
Now, he gets the food thrice weekly from supermarkets, such as Vons, Costco, Amazon, and Starbucks, along with other organizations. The food is circulated to others in need – frequently to the occupants back at The Salvation Army cover.
“The uplifting program can potentially inspire similar collaborations elsewhere,” Foundation spokesperson Brian Hayes said.