Ithaca College’s Towers dining hall kitchen is empty with the exception of four students; some of the members of the Stop Wasting Ithaca’s Food Today Club (SWIFT).
Some of the meals the SWIFT Club prepared for the Rescue Mission.
SWIFT has been serving the community since 2007. The goal of the club, according to president Peter Davis, is to not only repurpose waste food, but to help feed Ithaca’s homeless.
The club works with the Tompkins County Food Distribution Network and Ithaca College Dining Services to package about 60 meals a week and deliver them to the Ithaca Rescue Mission.
On April 24, SWIFT held its weekly packaging meeting. Vice President Genevieve Terrall opened the two large stainless steel coolers in the kitchen while she explained that each Friday, dining hall workers place tubs of leftover food from that day in the coolers before the dining hall closes.
Terrall and Davis remove tubs of rice and beans, chicken, corn, refried beans and pulled pork and hand them to club member Katie Zasowski. Zasowski, a sophomore, said that she heard about the club when she attended the organization fair as a freshman.
“In a lot of clubs, you just talk about possible solutions to problems,” Zasowski said. “I was drawn to SWIFT because it’s purely action based, and I can really be involved in making a difference.”
The other two dining halls on campus compost their waste food, Davis said. The reason the club only collects food from Towers dining hall is because it is the only dining hall on campus that does not serve dinner on Fridays, which allows members time to come in the kitchen and package the food.
The club members were careful to place the various foods in containers so that each meal was well portioned. About 20 containers were filled with half Spanish rice and half corn, while the rest were filled with either chicken, pulled pork or refried beans. This way, the club is able to provide equal portions, and provided non-meat options for Ithaca’s large vegetarian population.
Brandon Innerst, the manager of Towers dining hall, brought out another
container filled with pre-packaged sandwiches and salads for the club members
to take as well. These items are from the dining hall’s grab-and-go, which
allows students to pick up a pre-packaged meal and take it on the go.
Once the club members put all packaged the meals, Davis was sure to walk
around the kitchen with a Sharpie and wrote the date that meals were
packaged. He then loaded them into three large portable coolers and put
them in his car to drive to the Rescue Mission downtown.
“I’ve been in the club since 2012,” Davis said as he loaded the coolers. “I really
enjoy going every week, and they really appreciate that we do it.”
Ithaca Rescue Mission
The club used to donate meals to the Red Cross, but in March of 2014, the Rescue Mission took over the State Street shelter in downtown Ithaca. The shelter now has 20 emergency beds and 15 rooms for people, along with a food pantry that SWIFT donates to each week.
The Rescue Mission emergency shelter provides services for men, women, and children experiencing homelessness. They work intensively with clients to assist in finding employment, physical and mental health care, substance abuse treatment, and most importantly housing. They have a Friendship Center and Community Food Pantry to help mostly lower income residents of Tompkins County by providing emergency food baskets and a connection point for various community services.
Alan French, the program manager at the Rescue Mission, said that the food that SWIFT donates each week normally provides each resident with two meals. He said that they are extremely grateful for the donations that SWIFT provides, because Rescue Mission programs only receive ten percent of their funding from government sources, the other 90 percent comes from fundraising and Thrifty Shopper sales, which are also donation driven.
“Without the help from groups like SWIFT the financial strain on feeding the people we serve would be much greater,” French said. “Our clients are also very grateful for meals that do not come straight from our pantry as they provide a nice variety for them.”
Zasowski and Terrall are proud of the way the club not only benefits the environment, but the community as well.
“I worked in Terraces dining hall last year, so I saw how much food gets thrown out,” Zasowski said. “And even though it gets composted, that still seemed like a waste to me, because that could be someone’s meal.”
Ithaca College Club Reaches Out Each Week to Feed Homeless
