Need an Enriching Summer Activity for Kids? Take Them on a Food Rescue

One option available to Pittsburgh families can be found through the city’s trailblazing 412 Food Rescue, which has mobilized more than 24,000 locals to be volunteer Food Rescue Heroes, saving good food from going to waste by delivering it to the people who need it most. The organization’s app makes it easy to find rescues that fit your schedule – and to bring the kids along for a lesson on people power.

Since the beginning, Food Rescue Heroes have taken their children along – from toddlers to teenagers. Parents report that the experience is a fun and meaningful activity for their families, providing a constructive way to help their kids learn about challenges like food waste and food insecurity, while also showing them how regular people can take on those issues. Little kids get especially excited to don their metaphorical capes as Food Rescue Heroes (not that you couldn’t also whip up some real capes), and older kids get a deeper understanding of their connections to their neighborhoods, their city, and their world.

Volunteers connect to rescues through the 412 Food Rescue app, which works like a “DoorDash for good,” alerting users to rescues in their area and guiding them through pick-up from grocery stores, restaurants, and other businesses to drop-off at nonprofit partners. Most rescues take under an hour, and users can choose occasional rescues and/or sign up for weekly ones.

With the guesswork taken care of, rescues become a simple and direct way to make an impact, allowing Food Rescue Heroes of all ages to see for themselves the boxes heaped with fresh fruits and vegetables, bread, meat, and more that they are saving from the landfill – as well as the smiles of nonprofit workers receiving food to nourish their communities and recipients happy to get a little help putting something good on the dinner table.

For high-schoolers, the experience can also fulfill volunteer-hour requirements, build their credentials for college and job applications or help them practice and meet the requirements for a driver’s license. And for those parents teaching their teenagers to drive, a food rescue can add some meaningful mileage to all that time spent together in the car.

Molly Cook has been on multiple rescues with her 16-year-old. “His after-school schedule is busy, which makes it difficult to schedule volunteer shifts. 412 Food Rescue made it easy, because when he had a little free time, we’d check the app and get in a rescue. He got some relevant experience for a school project on food insecurity and some volunteer hours for [applying to National Honor Society] next year, so we were able to fill two needs with each rescue! Not to mention we’ve met lovely, helpful people along the way.”

The experience is an uplifting way to engage with some challenging realities.

“Children are more aware than ever, and earlier than ever, of scary problems like climate change and inequality,” says 412 Food Rescue CEO Alyssa Cholodofsky. She notes that, in the U.S., nearly 40% of the food that is produced ends up going to waste, representing a tremendous climate impact. Meanwhile, one in ten people nationwide goes hungry. In Pennsylvania, that number is one in eight, with nearly 1.7 million food-insecure residents.

“It’s a daunting time to be growing up, but hands-on volunteer opportunities like food rescues help break down those big problems into small, everyday actions that we can share, to make a difference together. It’s never too early to show children the power they have for good.”

Launched in 2015, 412 Food Rescue is the largest volunteer food rescue organization in the country. Its volunteers have recovered over 25 million pounds of nutritious food and transported it to a broad array of partners serving food-insecure populations, from public housing facilities, to after-school programs, to community centers – mitigating 69 million pounds of CO2 emissions along the way.