Welcome to the June Newsletter and we hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend with your friends and families. It is time for Summer fun! Our donors and volunteers were able to create and deliver an impressive 1095 delicious and nutritious meals in the month of May and donated $6846 worth of dry goods and food items. Our donation numbers continue to improve month after month thanks to your incredible work.
As temperatures rise, we want to remind you that all of our meals are packaged ready-to-eat, which in a small way means, “pretty soon.” We package our meals this way due to the fact that some of our clients do not have access to a way to cook their food, whether that be oven, microwave or hotplate. This also usually means a lack of access to refrigeration. Enter the Community Fridge. The Little Free Library for food and the idea has really taken off in some communities. Free produce or meals that would have been otherwise wasted, available to whomever may want it.
While I often talk about our successful grant funding and projects like our recent kitchen expansion thanks to the Delaware Community Foundation, truthfully, we have many grant applications that are not as successful. By now maybe you see where I am headed. While we have recently applied for two grants that, if approved, would allow us to purchase Community Fridge style grab & go coolers for our clients to access meals that stay fresher for longer, the Summer heat is upon us, food spoils more quickly, and we simply do not have time to wait on long approvals. We cross our fingers with every application, but it is through donors like you that we achieve our goals. If you would like to support our mission to serve fresh and healthy meals, please use the PayPal link below or reply to this email for volunteer information. Thank you to all our supporters, we cannot do it without you.
Community Spotlight
Epworth United Methodist Church Food Rescue
What a wonderful partnership we have made with the Epworth Food Rescue team! An incredible organization that began in 2011 with a two-fold mission: to feed healthy meals to those in need and to target a zero food waste goal that not only feeds the hungry, but contributes to cutting down the methane gas emissions created by food waste in landfills. Sound familiar?
While we have worked closely with Epworth Food Rescue for a long time, we want to highlight the sheer amount of rescued resources we have received from them and in particular, the help we have received from their program coordinator, Gerrie Boisjoly. In just the past two weeks, they have given us
over 700 lbs of food!
They rescue and process a truly staggering amount of unused food and their work in reducing landfill emissions as well as sustaining the local community is immeasurable and we thank them for all their hard work.
If you would like to know how you can become involved with this organization or to coordinate a donation please visit their facebook page.
What do the numbers really mean?
Less than 10% of plastic waste ever generated worldwide has been recycled. Plastic can take so many different forms and is in so many different things, it can be tremendously overwhelming to recycle every piece we come into contact with and we didn’t really do ourselves any favors with the confusing number system. Just seeing the “chasing arrows” recycle symbol with the little number may make you think that the item is automatically recyclable, how could it not be? The picture is right there. Except, only those with a “little number” or resin identification code of 1 or 2 are widely recycled in the U.S. Whether items coded 3 through 7 actually get recycled depends on local waste management practices. But that doesn’t stop yogurt cups, medicine bottles, and take-out food containers from wearing the badge and making you feel ok about using them, despite not being recyclable in your area, or even your state.
So we’re going to do something about putting an end to “wishcycling.” The governor of California recently signed a bill into law that would limit the types of plastic that could carry the recycling symbol in California, drawing the line between “potentially recyclable” and actually recyclable. You might say, well ok good for California, but it will be virtually impossible for corporations to create California-only packaging for all the various plastic products we use every day, that the law there will have future implications for packaging across the country, making it easier for other states to follow suit and demand more transparency.
And closer to home, the Delaware State Senate recently passed legislation to limit the use of polystyrene containers and many single-use plastics at food establishments throughout the state. “Senate Bill 57 would bar restaurants from serving ready-to-eat food in containers made from polystyrene, a non-biodegradable and potentially carcinogenic petroleum product best known by the brand name Styrofoam, starting on July 1, 2025. The bill would further prohibit food establishments in Delaware from providing single-use plastic straws unless requested by a consumer, while also banning single-use plastic coffee stirrers, cocktail picks and sandwich picks.” Polystyrene is just a terrible material, creating pollutants in both its creation and its destruction. These products don’t get recycled, they break down into smaller and smaller micro-plastics and are ingested by our wildlife and poison our water. Their mild convenience is not worth the damage. This bill is a huge environmental win.
For more information and clarification on what is recyclable, and what we wishwas recyclable, we invite you to read more:
Nextrex Bag & Film Recycling Videos and Information
The Rule of Thumb: How to Recognize Recyclable Soft Plastics
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