Because of the high need of the students at my school, we have a federal government grant called the "Supper Program," in which any student, regardless of Socio-Economic status, gets a FREE dinner if he/she stays after school with a sponsored activity. As students go through the line, they must take a milk, a sandwich, and a fruit/vegetable. Even if a student is allergic to apples, if the fruit o' the day is an apple, he has to take one. Students then leave what they don't want on the "Share Table," to share with those who want. This table should be called the 'trash table,' because most everything goes into the trash, including un-open milks, loads of fruit, and bags of carrots.
I can't stand to see it all go to waste, so today I decided to get a big empty box, and fill it with the leftover apples and milks. In the box I saved about 60 apples from going to waste, and about 15 milks. I passed them out to teachers, and then what was leftover I took to my night class tonight, and gave to classmates.
Its just such an enormous waste of money and food. I would like to find a charity of some sort that would take the leftovers on a regular basis, but have yet to find time for that.
You should see how much gets wasted where I work. We always have food for meetings and they order too much. Sometimes staff take home leftovers but most of the time the stuff gets thrown away. Unfortunately charities won't take food unless it's in unopened containers. I'm not sure if fruits and vegetables have the same requirement.
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