Opportunity Council - SC Food Recovery Vista

Opportunity Council - SC Food Recovery VISTA

Sustainable Connections (SC) is a nonprofit located in Bellingham, WA. Founded in 2002, SC creates thriving communities through innovative ideas, collaboration, and action.

The Toward Zero Waste (TZW) program achieves this goal by helping local businesses and individuals reduce and better manage waste. TZW is home to the Food Recovery Program (FRP), which launched in 2017 in response to EPA findings that 30% of U.S. food is wasted, observations of wasted food locally during waste assessments, and the climate change impacts of organics in the landfill FRP reduces food insecurity and addresses climate change by redistributing nutritious surplus food that might otherwise go to waste. FRP acts as a courier of commercially prepared, surplus food.

The program recovers food from restaurants, schools, hospital cafeterias and other locations that are traditionally overlooked in the larger picture of hunger relief. Most recovered food is brought to hunger relief agencies, however in 2022 the Freedge (free fridge) was launched to expand access to recovered food and is open to all members of the community. By recovering prepared foods, FRP reaches recipients that may not have access to a kitchen, time or skills to prepare foods, or unable to benefit from food-bank-model of hunger relief.

The program helps meet basic needs for our neighbors, saves social service agencies money they can redirect to additional basic needs, and mitigates climate impacts of food waste. Further help on this page can be found by clicking here.

Member Duties : The AmeriCorps VISTA member will build FRP capacity in supporting hunger relief and climate change action locally. The VISTA member will support sustainable program growth through strategic outreach, recruitment, and relationship building with volunteers, donor businesses, and recipient organizations.

The VISTA member will recruit, manage, and strengthen our volunteer base, streamline volunteer management systems, coordinate schedules, improve training materials, and oversee volunteer appreciation. The VISTA member will improve efficiency and impact of food recovery through thoughtful matching of recovered foods to recipients. The VISTA member will work closely with members of the TZW Team to integrate FRP into broader TZW campaigns.

Program Benefits : Training , Relocation Allowance , Health Coverage* , Stipend .

Terms :

Permits working at another job during off hours , Permits attendance at school during off hours .

Service Areas :

Environment , Hunger , Community Outreach .

Skills :

Public Speaking , Team Work , Communications .