February 2015
Corporate – Nonprofit Partnership Rescues over Two Million Pounds of Food
Since 2011, Kwik Trip and partner food banks, including the Northeast Iowa Food Bank, have rescued over 2 million pounds of food through the Kwik Trip Food Rescue program.
This corporate – nonprofit partnership combines the skills and assets of Kwik Trip and food banks to better reach the shared goal of food secure communities:
- Kwik Trip’s logistical and marketing skills are combined with food banks’ community needs assessment and client relations skills, and;
- Kwik Trip’s surplus food assets are combined with food bank’s food distribution assets;
- Resulting in more food secure communities, which food banks serve and where Kwik Trip does business.
Kwik Trip traditionally waits until there are at least ten of their stores in a food bank’s service area before initiating a food rescue partnership, and challenges partnering food banks to rescue food from every Kwik Trip store in their region.
Food bank staff and volunteers typically collect food two times a week from participating Kwik Trip stores. To ensure quality as the rescued food is transported, Kwik Trip helps partner food banks:
- collect food from Kwik Trip stores in totes, and;
- transport food in climate controlled vehicles.
Kwik Trip, Inc. relies on the partner agencies each food bank has in their network. Each food bank will partner with a local agency that is able to conduct store pick-ups at a minimum of 2 times a week. Donated/Rescued food stays in the local communities and ultimately reduces hunger in the communities where Kwik Star is located. Even donations raised at store level are distributed through the food banks to the partner agencies that are picking up at the stores.
The program began as a small pilot in 2011 with the Channel One Regional Food Bank in Rochester, Minnesota. By September, 2012, the program expanded to include Second Harvest Heartland Food Bank in the Twin Cities and the Northeast Iowa Food Bank. Food banks serving Wisconsin were added in 2013, and the program will soon expand again to include the River Bend Foodbank serving Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois. With these expansions, the program is on track to rescue over 1 million additional pounds of food in the fiscal year ending in September 2015.
For more information about the Kwik Trip Food Rescue Program, please contact Mr. Marty Putz by email or at 608-793-6218.
Inspired by Iowa Youth Institute, Boone Students Continue Fight against Hunger
Almost 100 people gathered in the Boone High School gymnasium on Friday to fight hunger through the second annual Boone Community Hunger Banquet. Participants learned about how food is distributed unequally in the world and raised money for a student-led meal packaging activity. The Boone student-organizers were inspired by ISU freshman Paige Myers, who was in turn inspired by her experiences as a high school delegate to the Iowa Youth Institute at Iowa State University.
The Iowa Youth Institute inspires the next generation of hunger fighters. Students work with a teacher-mentor to research and present their own solutions to food insecurity, participate in hands-on experiments and simulations let by ISU faculty, and network with peers and leaders in government, business, the nonprofit community and academia.
Registration is due on March 27th for the April 27th 2015 Iowa Youth Institute. Full details are online at /iowayouth.
Photo Credits: Top: Food Rescue brochures are available at Kwik Trip stores across Iowa, Bottom: Boone Eighth Graders raise money for their upcoming meal-packaging event.