In honor of Earth Day, we’re shining a light on our Food Rescue program, a critical piece of our work to fight hunger from all angles. 

Americans throw away an enormous amount of food – an average of one pound of food each day for person in the country. That’s around 30% of our available food supply going directly into the trash. 

At Second Helpings, we strive to prevent waste across our operations. In fact, sustainability is one of our organizational principles, and one of the goals of our strategic plan. We work to prevent waste wherever we can, and use the food we rescue to create meals and opportunities in our community. 

Each year Second Helpings rescues more than 3.4 million pounds of food. We work with our partners in the food service industry – wholesale distributors, grocers, caterers, restaurants, and others – to safely and efficiently collect surplus and perishable food that may have otherwise been thrown away. 

Five days each week, we send out refrigerated trucks and vans to rescue bread, produce, meat, dairy, and much more from local donors. We use those ingredients to prepare over 5,000 meals a day in our Hunger Relief kitchen and practical cooking assignments in our Culinary Job Training program. 

This Earth Day, we’d like to celebrate the many partners, including those who provide funding for this program, who help us rescue food and repurpose it for our nonprofit partner agencies; including United Way of Central Indiana, Kroger, and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation.

Throughout our 25+ year history, Second Helpings has rescued more than 49 million pounds of food. Instead of going to waste, those rescued ingredients have been turned into millions of nutritious meals and more than 1,000 culinary careers. 

Those 49 million pounds of food saved equates to more than 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide prevented from entering the atmosphere – the equivalent of the emissions from more than 13,000 passenger vehicles driven for one year (according to ReFed’s Impact Calculator).

Celebrate Earth Day by joining Second Helpings in the fight against food waste – sign up to volunteer with our food rescue team! We’re looking for drivers, driver companions, and food sorters, Monday-Friday.