A produce wholesaler in Santa Barbara donates 30 flats of slightly soft strawberries to a local food bank.
A restaurant owner in Florida brings four unsold pizzas to a lunch program at a community shelter.
A member of the AmeriCorps National Service Program in Iowa recruits community volunteers to pick corn from an already harvested field. What do these people have in common?
Whether you call it gleaning, food rescue, or food recovery, they are all part of a growing community of individuals who work from day to day to make sure good food goes to the dinner table instead of going to waste.
In the United States, we not only produce an abundance of food, we waste an enormous amount of it as well. Up to one-fifth of America's food goes to waste — in fields, commercial kitchens, markets, schools, and restaurants.
Even in a society where just about everything is disposable, good food going to waste is unacceptable. As long as any child or adult in this country is going hungry, food recovery will be one of my highest personal priorities as Secretary of Agriculture.
Since it was founded by Abraham Lincoln in 1862, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been known as the "People's Department" because it has a direct, positive impact on people's lives. I can think of no greater way to fulfill that legacy than by helping to feed families who would otherwise go hungry.
At USDA, we battle hunger every day. Our Food Stamp Program helps 27 million low-income Americans put food on the table. Our Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) makes sure young children, newborns, and pregnant women get the nutrition they need. Our School Lunch Program ensures that 25 million children don't have to learn on empty stomachs.
These strong Federal programs are essential, but government alone cannot solve the problem of hunger in America. We need your help.
As a catalyst for that help, USDA is working with groups such as Foodchain and Second Harvest to lead a national effort to coordinate public and private projects to rescue the millions of pounds of healthful, uneaten food in this country that would otherwise have been thrown away every year even as millions of Americans go hungry.
This handbook is about what you can do. It lists ways you can join this growing community of volunteers. In short, it tells you how to make a daily difference in the lives and futures of hungry families across our Nation.
Dan Glickman
Secretary of Agriculture