Jill Riggs is the director of food service at Penn Harris Madison School Corporation. She has been leading school food waste solutions at Penn Harris since at least 2012, and the impact of 15 schools donating instead of dumping for 12 years is very inspiring, and we hope you enjoy hearing her story and the story Penn Harris Madison School Corporation.

Linda Williams started the Fishers UMC food pantry in 2007, almost the exact same time that Food Rescue was founded. In 2016, the Fishers UMC food pantry was once of the very first food pantry partners involved with K-12 Food Rescue, picking up from 7 schools in the Hamilton Southeaster School District.

Listen to the inspiring story of Indianapolis Public Schools Jonathon Jennings (IPS 109) Family and Community Liaison, Veronica Fuentes, and her effort to restore the schools' K-12 Food Rescue program after the pandemic.

We are excited to share the food waste solution journey of Cornell University Sophomore, Trisha Bhujle. When Trisha was a senior in high school in Texas, she wrote a letter to the Lewisville Independent School District regarding suggestions to reduce food waste in her school district, and we recently stumble upon that letter that she published on her Substack, calle the Sentimental Environmentalist. She has gone on to pursue her passion for both hunger relief and environmental sustainability issues while at Cornell, and we believe it's important to highlight people who take their interest in food waste and take an action step, such as a compelling letter to a school district. Trisha's letter provided a great template to follow for so many, and we are happy to share that letter on today's podcast.

https://sentimentalenvironmentalist.substack.com/p/local-food-waste-reduction-an-email

Listen to the exciting school food waste solution journey of Marie Johnson, the Student Nutrition Program Coordinator at Farmington Municipal  Schools and former New Mexico Nutrition Association President, and Paula Szczepanek, the Resident District Manager with K-12 By Elior, a food service company partnering with Farmington Municipal Schools. 

This marks the 30th state we have recorded an episode regarding a successful school food waste solution program. Due to some difficulty with the podcast connections in New Mexico, Paula had to call into the podcast on a cell phone, so the audio is a little rougher than normal, but we were glad to hear her and the Elior food service perspective on the partnership with Farmington Municipal Schools.

Hear the inspiring story of City Barbeque's Food Rescue Program, as told by Ronnie Berry, their Chief Administrative Officer. City Barbeque is a fast growing scratch restaurant with 70 locations nation wide.

Listen to the exciting journey of Robert Lee, the Co-Founder of Rescuing Leftover Cuisine, a national food rescue organization. Robert left his job at JP Morgan in his early 20's to pursue leading the #FoodIsNotTrash movement through Rescuing Leftover Cuisine. RLC has rescued millions of pounds of food since it's foundation as a Not for Profit organization since 2015.

Hear the inspiring story of Windy Ridge gifted and talented teacher Marta Heistand, as she shares how her students led the #FoodIsNotTrash movement in 2019 at Windy Ridge through their K-12 Food Rescue Share Table and food pantry partner program.

Listen to the inspiring partnership between Noblesville Schools, The White River Christian Food Pantry, and Food Rescue. The WRCC food pantry has received an estimated 350,000 food items in the past 7 years from the Noblesville School District's K-12 Food Rescue Program according to our guest Jeff Demasie, the food pantry director.

Listen to Vicki Ballas, the Michigan State University