This week, Kelly talks about our mission to reduce waste and feed as many people as possible by highlighting our partnership with Food Rescue US.
As a vertical farm growing food in the heart of a major city, we are always looking for ways to be a more active member of our immediate and surrounding communities. When we realized there would be some weeks where we grew more food than we could sell, I set out to find a way to get our leftover greens to folks who could really make use of them; that’s when I found Food Rescue US on Instagram. As soon as I read their mission statement, “Our mission is to feed our community while keeping food out of the landfill. Discarded food takes up the largest amount of space in our landfills and leads to the production of methane gas, which is a major contributor to the rapid pace of climate change,” I knew they would be a perfect partner for Planted Detroit.
By growing hydroponically and fully indoors, we’re able to grow 365 days a year, which is a huge advantage when it comes to trying to solve problems related to accessibility to fresh, local, nutritious food. As members of the Islandview community, we know how important it is to take every step we can towards combating food insecurity close to home, and Food Rescue US makes it easy to get food that might have gone to waste, right into the hands of those who need it most.
Darraugh Collins is the founder of our local chapter in Detroit. When asked about how it all began, she said, “I started Food Rescue US- Detroit because I saw food waste firsthand in the hospitality industry and knew our environment deserved better - and we could feed our community at the same time.”
Darraugh told us last week that our local chapter has already saved and distributed 6.5 millions pounds of food to our community through daily food rescues and their partnership with the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box Program. We’re so thankful for our partnership with Food Rescue US- Detroit and for the ease of donating: whenever we have excess greens, I just open the app and schedule a pick-up on a day that works for us. That’s it!
To register as a volunteer food rescuer, sign up at www.foodrescue.us, to be a receiving agency or food donor send an email to detroit@foodrescue.us (to make a monetary donation, check out their fundraiser), and be sure to follow their work on Instagram or Facebook.