By: Ria Rueda
Did you know that there are nearly 520,350 food insecure people, including 157,550 children, in the state of CT? How about this statistic…110,000 food insecure people in Fairfield County, including 28,000 children? Those are insane numbers, aren’t they? We, along with 30 other food donors in the area, are proud to support the efforts of an amazing organization called Community Plates. Established in 2011, Community Plates is a volunteer-driven, non-profit organization committed to ending American food insecurity by directly transferring fresh, usable food that would have otherwise been thrown away from restaurants, markets and other food industry sources to food-insecure families in Fairfield County; New Haven, CT; Albuquerque, NM and Columbus, OH.
Another goal of Community Plates is to make it easy for businesses to donate their excess food. Donors can select the day and time that’s most convenient for Community Plates’ volunteers (“runners”) to come and pick up items. The runners then directly deliver them to hunger-relief agencies. Since it began, the agency has rescued nearly a million meals!
And that’s not all…Community Plates just introduced its GoRescue app, which is designed to let the food runners access the organization’s “self-serve volunteer management system” via mobile phone or web. With the app, volunteers sign up for food runs on the spot or in advance, access details and participate in a community of social volunteers.
“Community Plates offers unmatched flexibility and autonomy for our volunteers since they can sign up for food runs at locations and times that fit their schedules,” said Kevin Mullins, Executive Director. More specifically, GoRescue keeps Community Plate volunteers engaged by enabling them to chat about food runs, share ideas about new opportunities to help the food-insecure, and most importantly, swap inspirational success stories about the people they help.
Hunger is all around us, and even affects people with jobs and homes who are having trouble making ends meet. If you’re interested in finding out more information about volunteering, donating or learning more about the organization, visit communityplates.org or call 800-280-3298.
