Food Runners CT: The Bridge Between Excess Food and Hunger

According to Jonathan Bloom, author of “American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half Its Food,” America wastes as much as 40 percent of its food.

Andy Geremia heard this startling statistic on a radio talk show while driving to work in 2008. Mary Risly, a San Francisco woman, was telling her story.

Working in the professional world of cooking, Risly could see food wasted every day. So she came up with an idea and established a program called Food Runners of San Francisco, a group dedicated to collecting food before it is wasted and redistributing it instead to community services that feed hungry families.  

The concept seemed simple and Geremia wondered why such a program did not exist in Connecticut. That morning, while the inspiration was fresh, he contacted Risly to see how she put her program together. With her help and guidance, a lot of his own research and the assistance of the Connecticut Urban Legal Initiative at the UConn School of Law, by June 2009 he had founded Food Runners CT, a non-profit based in Southington. He was ready to build a network of volunteers, sources of food and services needing food to feed the hungry.

By nature, Geremia is modest and understated. When asked what motivated him to take on such a challenge, his brief response was to the point.

“When I was growing up, I always knew that we didn’t waste food in my house.  When a piece of fruit was starting to go bad, we’d cut off that piece and use the rest,” Geremia said.

Such customs and folkways, learned early on, often stay with us throughout our lives.

Food Runners CT is operating today with farmers' markets, bakeries and corporate cafeterias such as Aetna’s in Hartford, as their food sources.  Geremia has identified many non-profits feeding the hungry across the state, such as Southington Community Services. He says he has learned a about feeding the hungry from Bread for Life’s Executive Director, Eldon Hafford.

Day by day, the word is spreading and the operation is growing, thanks to many who want to be part of this simple idea of using our rich sources of food efficiently. 

"It is a fact that there is enough food produced in this country to feed everyone.  The problem is distribution," said Mary Risley, founder of Food Runners of San Francisco. "Andy Geremia and his volunteers are doing a fantastic job to help see that the excess food produced is redistributed to help feed the hungry of Connecticut. I am very proud of their efforts!" 

Whether you are involved in a food service operation, or you’re an agency feeding the hungry, or you would like to volunteer to be the bridge between waste and need as a Food Runner, contact this precious gift to Connecticut’s hungry at www.foodrunnersct.org.   

How many more, I wonder, will react as Andy Geremia did by rising to the occasion when he heard about it on the radio!