New Haven Nonprofit ​“Harvests” QU’s Leftovers

Haven’s Harvest Executive Director Lori Martin watched Tuesday as volunteers picked up four large trays of left-over Quinnipiac dining hall Monday dinner to carry them away to more needy stomachs.

It was the first food pickup in a new partnership the New Haven-based nonprofit just began with Quinnipiac University. Haven’s Harvest runs a robust food recovery program in the New Haven area, bringing uneaten excess food from local businesses and other institutions to people who cannot afford meals.

Martin gathered with representatives from the university, the Town of Hamden, and United Way of Greater New Haven Tuesday at the Carl Hansen Student Center at Quinnipiac to hold a press conference announcing the partnership. For Quinnipiac, it was the beginning of a smoother food-donation program, and for Martin, it was the beginning of a large expansion into Hamden.

Quinnipiac already donates leftover food from its main Mt. Carmel campus cafeteria. However, it relies on student volunteers to transport it, said Albert Schweitzer Institute Executive Director Sean Duffy (pictured). With that system, he said, ​“the weakness is that you have to organize anew every semester,” and it can be difficult to get volunteers during breaks and exam periods.

Now Haven’s Harvest will organize the food transportation. Starting in January, Quinnipiac Dining will give uneaten food from its main dining hall to Haven’s Harvest volunteers, who will bring it to various organizations throughout Hamden.

On Tuesday, the donated food went to Saint Ann’s Church on Dixwell Avenue, according to Martin. She said Haven’s Harvest brings the food to religious communities, schools, daycares, senior-living centers, nonprofits like Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) and Junta for Progressive Action in New Haven, and other organizations.

Martin said Haven’s Harvest has already created partnerships with a few Hamden institutions. Thyme and Season and Starbucks already donate, and Haven’s Harvest has been bringing food to St. Ann’s Church for a few years. She said she would like to create a much more robust operation in Hamden, however.

“Haven’s Harvest addresses a conundrum of our time,” said Martin. ​“The existence of a huge amount of food waste and also high food insecurity rates.”

In April, the Hamden Food Security Taskforce held a ​“hunger summit” to release a report which found that one in eight Hamden residents experience hunger, and that 39 percent of families struggle to put food on the table. According to data from Hamden Public Schools, as of the summer of 2019, 48 percent of students in the district qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

At the same time, food waste is rampant in the United States. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, between 30 and 40 percent of food goes to waste. That’s about 133 billion pounds, or $161 billion worth of food. 

At the April summit, many participants in small-group discussions said food recovery could help fill gaps in food assistance programming, said Jason Martinez of United Way of Greater New Haven. At the same time, he said, Haven’s Harvest was looking to expand into Hamden.

United Way gave Haven’s Harvest a $2,000 grant, which Sustainable CT matched, so it could start to expand into Hamden. Martin said she hopes to raise $25,000 more, half of it from direct fundraising, and half from a matching grant from Sustainable CT. She said she wants to hire an employee to oversee the Hamden operation.

The expansion began symbolically Tuesday with about 60 pounds of Monday’s dinner cooled to below 40˚ Fahrenheit, as per food-safety guidelines. Volunteers from Hamden’s Opportunity House, which houses adults with autism, carried the trays to a car to start the journey to hungry Hamden residents on the other side of town.