Claire Graham is a sophomore majoring in Biology here at USFSP. She chose to come to USFSP because of the small class sizes and to be near the beach and the water. She used to want to be a physician, but now she realizes that she is much more interested in “working with communities to find solutions to public health issues such as hunger.” She changed her mind when she started a chapter of the Food Recovery Network on campus. She is not only the founder, but also the president of the Food Recovery Club.
(Claire Graham, Founder and President)
When asked what inspired her to start a chapter/club here on campus, she replied, “I learned about our parent organization, Food Recovery Network, from a sustainability conference called AASHE and knew right away I wanted to start a chapter at our school. With the help of Keairra Trimble, our VP, and Byron Baugh, our Secretary, the process of starting a new club has been pretty smooth and enjoyable. Our club adviser, Brian Pullen, was a huge help throughout the process too.”
(Vice President Keairra Trimble and Volunteer Mick Meilus)
The Food Recovery Club is a great organization to be involved in, and they meet every Tuesday and Thursday at 8:45 P.M. to collect leftover, unserved food from the Reef.
“With the help of our volunteers, we package the food and take it to ALPHA House, a women and children’s center about a mile [and] a half away from school. The whole process takes less than forty-five minutes! Since we started collecting food last January, we have donated over 500 pounds of food. All of this food was diverted from being thrown away! Each recovery [meeting], we get anywhere from 30 to 50 pounds of food,” Graham said.
Claire plans to add more days to meet to gather even more food to donate. The club continues to grow, but they still need as many volunteers as they can get. One of their goals is to collect all unserved food from the Reef. Eventually they hope to have enough food to donate to even more locations and shelters.
(Secratary Byron Baugh)
Claire continued to talk about what the club has done for her and how it feels to know she is making a difference.
“It’s been so rewarding to see how much food we could collect for donation,” she continued, “It has a great and simple way to give back to our community! I love that together, we are finding sustainable solutions to issues in our local community. Food recovery is a simple and easy way to help fight hunger while also reducing food waste on campus.”
If anyone is interested in joining or helping out, Claire said that, “If anyone is interested in volunteering for a food recovery can email me at cgraham6@mail.usf.edu or Keairra Trimble at ktrimble@mail.usf.edu. We are also having a meeting this Wednesday, March 29th, at 2:00 P.M. in the Butterfly Garden, right across from the USC to discuss our semester goals and projects. Anyone is welcome!”
HC xoxo,
Alyssa Harmon