Community Plates: Fighting Hunger in Fairfield County

One of the great things about doing what we do at VolunteerSquare.com is that every week we have the chance to work closely with nonprofit agencies doing some unbelievable good here in Fairfield County. There is no shortage of inspiration and recently our friends at Community Plates served up a generous helping.

The Norwalk-based non-profit connects surplus food from restaurants, grocery stores and other sources to “food-insecure” households throughout the U.S. Community Plates defines food insecurity as “the state of, or risk of, being unable to provide food for oneself or one’s family.” They say that due to high unemployment, 1 in 5 children in the U.S. lives in a household that sometimes runs out of food. They also say that Americans throw away between 25 and 40 percent of our food supply. Challenge, meet opportunity.

The Community Plates model works thanks to a strong corps of volunteers, or food runners, as they’re called. Food runners sign up for a rescue, pick up the food and deliver it to a nearby nonprofit that will then distribute the food to its clients.

We met up with Melissa Spiesman, Fairfield County Site Director for Community Plates, and tagged along on a food rescue. We met in the parking lot of Whole Foods Market in Darien near the loading dock. Melissa walked us up the back ramp to a metal rack inside the store's loading area labeled “Donations.” From this rack we loaded bags and bags of fresh bread and other baked goods into our cars and drove it over to the food pantry at Darien-based Person-to-Person where P2P volunteers used it to stock their shelves. Simple.

Community Plates Executive Director Kevin Mullins says the rescue process is designed to be as efficient as possible for everyone.

"Our food runners are passionate about helping their food insecure neighbors and about making the most efficient use of the time and resource they have to give,” said Mullins. “Our food runners love the idea of signing up 20 minutes before a potential food rescue, spending 20 minutes rescuing food and being able to feed 20 people as a result."

Kevin and his team are warriors in a fight against hunger. There is no other way to describe them. They work incredibly hard to help those in need with a passion that is so great to watch at work. What’s more, what they do makes so much sense. If you have an hour or so and want to help out, check them out on VolunteerSquare.com and on their app.

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