The world’s farmers produce enough food to feed 10 billion people -- more than the Earth’s entire population. But even in the United States, one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, 37 million residents don’t know where their next meal will come from.
Leah Lizarondo has been working to change that. She founded 412 Food Rescue in 2015, a service that recycles food by delivering it from events, grocery stores and other sources to needy families in Pittsburgh. The organization has now recycled more than 10 million pounds of food since it got off the ground. It has partnerships in more than half a dozen cities that now provide the same services, and Lizarondo said she hopes to expand the program to the rest of the nation.
“I like to solve problems,” Lizarondo said. “If you see a solution, it’s hard to unsee it.”
At the program’s inception, it was just Lizarondo and a few volunteers delivering food to hungry homes, but the program has now expanded to 8,000 volunteers. Together, they make 60,000 food trips a day. Those volunteers, with a 99% success rate for delivery, are now more reliable than Uber eats, where the delivery people are paid.
Lizarondo attributes that success to America’s ingrained “culture of volunteering,” and the almost video-game-like reward structure of delivering the food.
Leah Lizarondo has been working to change that. She founded 412 Food Rescue in 2015, a service that recycles food by delivering it from events, grocery stores and other sources to needy families in Pittsburgh. The organization has now recycled more than 10 million pounds of food since it got off the ground. It has partnerships in more than half a dozen cities that now provide the same services, and Lizarondo said she hopes to expand the program to the rest of the nation.
“I like to solve problems,” Lizarondo said. “If you see a solution, it’s hard to unsee it.”
At the program’s inception, it was just Lizarondo and a few volunteers delivering food to hungry homes, but the program has now expanded to 8,000 volunteers. Together, they make 60,000 food trips a day. Those volunteers, with a 99% success rate for delivery, are now more reliable than Uber eats, where the delivery people are paid.
Lizarondo attributes that success to America’s ingrained “culture of volunteering,” and the almost video-game-like reward structure of delivering the food.
To get started, a volunteer simply has to download the app. Most volunteers go on weekly rescues; they pick up surplus food, then deliver it to homes, shelters, food banks -- wherever there’s a need. Volunteers, she said, are always greeted with smiles and appreciative words by the individuals receiving food.
It’s an adventure, Lizarondo said, and one with a reward at the end.
Lizarondo’s said she’s never faced any major setbacks with 412 Food rescue, and she owes that to her marketing and organization skills. Her two major passions are food and technology. She said she initially spread the word about her organization through social media. Between that and her visits to local news sites, she’s had to rely on very little paid advertising, and most of her funding comes from philanthropic organizations.
But the success didn’t come easily. Lizarondo had to learn a lot about food before she could start Food Rescue, and she also brings her public policy expertise to the table. She wrote an award-winning column on healthy eating for Pittsburgh magazine shortly before she launched Food Rescue. Lizarondo also earned her Master’s degree in Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, which she said opened her up to the world of technology.
Still, the dire problem of food insecurity in Pittsburgh didn’t immediately catch her attention. It wasn’t until she read the NRDC’s report on food waste that she truly became passionate about recycling food.
“It was the statistics that jolted me,” Lizarondo said.
Forty percent of food that’s grown, processed and sent to stores eventually ends up in a landfill. The biggest culprits? Everyday Americans. Forty-three percent of food waste comes from ordinary homes in the United States, and, as a whole, food waste is the third largest contributor to carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.
“America’s become a country of throwing stuff out,” a volunteer in one of Lizarondo’s Food Rescue videos said.
Lizarondo’s doing her part to reduce emissions, encouraging people to recycle food instead of sending it straight to a landfill, where 97 percent of leftover food goes. But she says everyday Americans can help in other ways: they can buy only what they need; they can pay less attention to expiration dates. A combination of reduction and recycling can go a long way toward eliminating food waste, Lizarondo said, and it also helps the climate.
Despite her passion for food insecurity, Lizarondo said she’s never experienced it herself.
She grew up privileged -- her dad was the CEO of an insurance company and could easily provide for the entire family. But she’s been touched by grinding urban poverty, even if she wasn’t immersed in it.
“My only experience with poverty is seeing it around me,” Lizarondo said.
As a child in the Philippines, where the poverty rate is 60%, Lizarondo would go on trips to visit orphanages and witness people who were hungry and needed food. Her family comes from humble beginnings, too. She said when her aunts were young, they would fight over who got to wear shoes on a given day.
All of this has shaped Lizarndo’s passion for helping the poor.
“It’s lead me to believe that anyone can do anything,” Lizarondo said.
Lizarando’s ultimate goal is to make 412 Food Rescue an international endeavor. She’s not sure if she sees it in her hometown, but she’s already expanded to Vancouver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Northern Virginia, to name a few areas; and she plans on adding ten cities to that list per year.
Still, after successfully feeding thousands of people in Pittsburgh and reducing the City’s carbon footprint, Lizarondo insists that she’s no hero -- the volunteers are.
“The hero is everyone [on the ground] doing the food rescue,” Lizarondo said.
Neena Hagen is a junior Econ-Stat major at the University of Pittsburgh. As a senior staff writer for The Pitt News, Pitt’s student newspaper, she primarily reports on the University’s graduate student and faculty union campaigns. Her work has also appeared in The Philadelphia Public School Notebook, where she currently interns, and been featured on Pittsburgh’s local NPR station, where she was interviewed about her investigative series on the faculty union effort.
What the judges said:
It’s an adventure, Lizarondo said, and one with a reward at the end.
Lizarondo’s said she’s never faced any major setbacks with 412 Food rescue, and she owes that to her marketing and organization skills. Her two major passions are food and technology. She said she initially spread the word about her organization through social media. Between that and her visits to local news sites, she’s had to rely on very little paid advertising, and most of her funding comes from philanthropic organizations.
But the success didn’t come easily. Lizarondo had to learn a lot about food before she could start Food Rescue, and she also brings her public policy expertise to the table. She wrote an award-winning column on healthy eating for Pittsburgh magazine shortly before she launched Food Rescue. Lizarondo also earned her Master’s degree in Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, which she said opened her up to the world of technology.
Still, the dire problem of food insecurity in Pittsburgh didn’t immediately catch her attention. It wasn’t until she read the NRDC’s report on food waste that she truly became passionate about recycling food.
“It was the statistics that jolted me,” Lizarondo said.
Forty percent of food that’s grown, processed and sent to stores eventually ends up in a landfill. The biggest culprits? Everyday Americans. Forty-three percent of food waste comes from ordinary homes in the United States, and, as a whole, food waste is the third largest contributor to carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.
“America’s become a country of throwing stuff out,” a volunteer in one of Lizarondo’s Food Rescue videos said.
Lizarondo’s doing her part to reduce emissions, encouraging people to recycle food instead of sending it straight to a landfill, where 97 percent of leftover food goes. But she says everyday Americans can help in other ways: they can buy only what they need; they can pay less attention to expiration dates. A combination of reduction and recycling can go a long way toward eliminating food waste, Lizarondo said, and it also helps the climate.
Despite her passion for food insecurity, Lizarondo said she’s never experienced it herself.
She grew up privileged -- her dad was the CEO of an insurance company and could easily provide for the entire family. But she’s been touched by grinding urban poverty, even if she wasn’t immersed in it.
“My only experience with poverty is seeing it around me,” Lizarondo said.
As a child in the Philippines, where the poverty rate is 60%, Lizarondo would go on trips to visit orphanages and witness people who were hungry and needed food. Her family comes from humble beginnings, too. She said when her aunts were young, they would fight over who got to wear shoes on a given day.
All of this has shaped Lizarndo’s passion for helping the poor.
“It’s lead me to believe that anyone can do anything,” Lizarondo said.
Lizarando’s ultimate goal is to make 412 Food Rescue an international endeavor. She’s not sure if she sees it in her hometown, but she’s already expanded to Vancouver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Northern Virginia, to name a few areas; and she plans on adding ten cities to that list per year.
Still, after successfully feeding thousands of people in Pittsburgh and reducing the City’s carbon footprint, Lizarondo insists that she’s no hero -- the volunteers are.
“The hero is everyone [on the ground] doing the food rescue,” Lizarondo said.
Neena Hagen is a junior Econ-Stat major at the University of Pittsburgh. As a senior staff writer for The Pitt News, Pitt’s student newspaper, she primarily reports on the University’s graduate student and faculty union campaigns. Her work has also appeared in The Philadelphia Public School Notebook, where she currently interns, and been featured on Pittsburgh’s local NPR station, where she was interviewed about her investigative series on the faculty union effort.
What the judges said:
- The writer entwined quotes and statistics into an engaging and informative piece.
- The second-place article has a strong lede, the key information, good flow and a feel-good ending that works well within the context of the piece.