School Food Program Aims to Create ‘Social Entrepreneurs’

A Carmel-based organization is looking to give Hoosier students entrepreneurship and technology skills while helping to eliminate food waste. The Food Rescue program involves student clubs that market efforts to save "Unwanted, Unpeeled and Unwrapped" food items instead of throwing them away. The students then use a mobile platform to track the amount of food wasted and saved.

Food Rescue operates in hundreds of schools, mostly in Indiana. In all, it says 160,000 students and more than 100 restaurants and agency partners participate in the program. The organization says schools donate between 60-500 items per day.

Executive Director John Williamson says students hone their marketing schools by producing commercials and other materials to promote their efforts. He says the initiative allows students to become "social entrepreneurs."

Williamson says the mobile platform keeps track of preserved food in terms of pounds, meals and the amount of methane gas being saved from entering the environment. He says it shows students the impact their efforts are having on the community.