For Steve, retirement was never going to mean slowing down. With encouragement from his wife, he began looking for a meaningful way to contribute by volunteering for a local charity. He quickly discovered a passion that he could pour his energy and expertise into. After spending some time supporting a charity that provides food and other essentials, he discovered there was a good opportunity to fill the gap with rescued food. Food rescue includes the process of collecting good, edible food that would otherwise go to waste and giving it to people who can use it. While the food system was full of passionate people working incredibly hard and there is more than enough food available, he noticed that the system lacked the infrastructure they needed to make their efforts efficient and sustainable.
“There’s so much food,” Steve says. “It’s just that there’s no system for getting it to us.”
That realization helped shape what became the Food and Organics Oxford Distribution Project, known as the FOOD Project: a shared warehouse and distribution system that rescues surplus food and moves it efficiently to organizations supporting people experiencing food insecurity.
Today, the FOOD Project works with about 40 affiliated groups across Oxford County. Food arrives to the warehouse from grocery stores, restaurants, distributors and other partners where it is stored and sorted by volunteers. The project’s vans are on the road six days a week delivering an average 1,800 pounds of food, roughly the weight of a small car. Building that system has taken persistence, collaboration and a willingness to challenge old ways of doing things.
For Steve, though, the numbers only tell part of the story. “If you are food insecure, you are powerless,” he says.
He has seen that reality in unexpected places. While doing a pickup, a worker helping load the donated food quietly admitted that he didn’t have enough to eat himself. This interaction has reinforced Steve’s belief that food insecurity isn’t simply a matter of charity. It affects people’s health, their ability to work, their ability to learn and their ability to participate fully in their communities.
For Steve, the FOOD Project is not just about moving food from one place to another. It is about connection, dignity and making sure good food reaches the people and organizations that need it most. Retirement gave Steve a new way to serve his community and through the FOOD Project, that service continues to reach tables across Oxford County.