This season the SUNY-ESF men’s and women’s soccer teams didn’t just place in national tournaments. They also volunteered more than 180 hours working at the Syracuse University/SUNY-ESF Food Recovery Network.

The Food Recovery Network is a national organization that works to prevent food waste on college campuses. SU and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry started their joint chapter in 2014. Together they collect leftover, unused food from dining halls and donate it to homeless shelters, the Salvation Army and the Hopeprint refugee program — all of which are in the Syracuse community.

Nationwide, the Food Recovery Network has recovered more than 1.5 million pounds of food. Since its founding, the SUNY-ESF chapter has donated 6,000 pounds of food each year, according to the SUNY-ESF website.

Midfielder and junior environmental science major Lauren Archer got the soccer team involved earlier this semester after having volunteered on her own before.

As of now, the two soccer teams are the only sports teams participating, but other campus organizations including the SUNY-ESF Music Society, Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity and New York Public Interest Research Group have also volunteered.

“We would (love) to have sports teams contact us to volunteer with us,” said Shewa Shwani, president of SU/SUNY-ESF chapter and a junior biotechnology major at SUNY-ESF, in an email. “It’s definitely a bonding time for the team.”

Shwani said they have at most 70 volunteers per week and deliver food to two to three community organizations every night, six days per week. She added that there are slightly more SUNY-ESF students than SU students involved, but they are trying to grow their presence more at SU since the organization is for both campuses.

Despite the number of volunteers, Shwani said they still sometimes have trouble finding drivers, which she said are a key part of making the deliveries work. Each delivery requires a team of five, including the driver. Another challenge, she said, is trying not to give the organizations more food than they need.

“We get an average of 80 to over 200 (pounds) of food on each recovery and some of the agencies are very small so sometimes they can’t consume all the food,” Shwani said. “We don’t want there to be waste on their end at all.”

During the next few weeks, the Food Recovery Network is holding a Syracuse Holiday Shopping Spree. They have partnered with a women’s and family shelter and are raising money to give the residents gift cards to either buy something for themselves or for a loved one.

Shwani said her favorite part about doing the recoveries is meeting the people at the organizations that receive the food and having conversations with them.

“It’s definitely fulfilling, seeing their smiles and I love when they come out and help us transfer the food to their agency, it feels like a family,” Shwani said. “They’re normal people like us. I love how we have become so versatile over the 2 years by helping not only homeless individuals, but of all ages, ethnicities, and gender.”

Published on November 29, 2016 at 12:23 am

Contact Caroline: cbarthol@syr.edu