Spring 2014 - Writing Sample

Is Recover Rochester Putting Itself Out of Business?

By: Alexander J Davis

The program that redistributes leftover food from RIT dining halls may have a shorter shelf life than some may have expected.

Recover Rochester redistributes leftover food from Gracie’s, Dining Commons, Salsarita’s and Crossroads to local homeless shelters and food kitchens such as the Asbury Dining and Caring Center, St. Joe’s Neighborhood Center and Cameron’s Community Center. The program was founded in 2012 and has since recovered 18,390 pounds of food.

The club is led by founder and president Wai Hon Chan and vice president Nick Neumann. The two are helped by 23 consistent volunteers and several others each week with tasks such as inventory, pick-up and delivery.

The club grew quickly when it first began, but has since plateaued as far as membership. Neumann said he hopes the club will grow more once Recover Rochester’s collections and distributions widen.

Neumann was elected as the club president for 2014-2015.

“As much as what we do is helping people – feeding people, the real problem is food waste,” said Neumann.

Neumann added that he’d like to see even more change. Recover Rochester plans on securing a facility including a walk-in freezer to help organize the food. In the long-term, he said he would like to see the club expand food recovery into local businesses on Jefferson road and get their own mode of transportation.

As of now, Recover Rochester is using student government vans.

“It’s very nice of them to let us use them, but it would be great to get our own because sometimes the vans aren’t available,” Neumann said. “They are a hassle to get every time we need them because there is paperwork to fill out and they may not always be available.”

This could pose a problem for the club in the future, according to Neumann. If the club doesn’t have transportation every week it could waste a lot of food.

Jason Zheng, a member of Recover Rochester said he agrees with Neumann. Zheng does inventory multiple times a week for the club by going from dining hall to dining hall and weighing all of the leftover food.

He said the food leftovers definitely fluctuate, but Gracie’s usually has the most leftover food, however it has decreased significantly and he has been able to easily recognize that. Zheng also said he is very grateful that the dining halls cooperate so well with him when he mentions he is from Recover Rochester.

After hearing of Recover Rochester’s plans for the future, Zheng said he was excited. He said he thought the best part would be the mobile app the club is working to make documenting the recovered food easier. He said he loves how it avoids writing it all down on papers. The app would be a simple database for the club’s members to document the recoveries right from their phones.

The beneficiaries of the club are very dependent on Recover Rochester and definitely said they are enthusiastic about it.

Scott Vadney, the general manager of Gracie’s said everyone at Gracie’s loves Recover Rochester.

“Food Link [another non-profit organization] is now a verb at Grace Watson,” said Vadney.

Instead of just throwing food away when it isn’t of the quality Vadney approves of, the dining hall can now send it to a good cause.

Vadney said there will always be a need for Recover Rochester. Gracie’s wants every customer to have high quality food, so Vadney said they need to overproduce to keep that quality high at all times of the day.

The distribution centers that receive Recover Rochester’s donations depend on Recover Rochester, too. Bill Fiser Jr., who is the kitchen manager at Cameron’s Community Center, said Cameron’s needs the club.

 “The stuff we get, we use usually in the same week, and it extends the other donations we already have – enlarges our menu,” said Fiser.

He said the club allows him to bring in other options to people and also added meat to Cameron’s menu.

If Fiser was ever faced with the situation of Recover Rochester being absent, he said it would be tough.

“[It would be a] hardship in trying other sources to get to food. Since they’ve been so regular, we figure that as our stable menu,” said Fiser.

Cameron’s Community Center served over 63,000 people in 2013 and is already headed upwards of that number in 2014.

Sara Ribakove is the president of the University of Rochester’s version of Recover Rochester, Food Recovery Network, and was heavily influenced by Chan and Neumann.

“Both Nick and Wai Han have given us wonderful input on how to improve our chapter and suggested future collaborations between our chapters,” said Rivakove in an email interview.

Ribakove also said she hopes to expand to recover food from other businesses and locations to help more people.