![]() “It was just being tossed,” Grenier said. Before that, she said, she hadn't thought twice about what happened to leftover food. Grenier created the Surplus Project in 2015 at Rush Oak Park Hospital, a clinical partner of Rush University Medical Center. had food donation programs, according to Practice Greenhealth's annual Sustainability Benchmark Report issued this month. Only 12 percent of the more than 300 hospitals surveyed in the U.S. Last year, Practice Greenhealth, a nonprofit promoting environmental stewardship in health care, collaborated with Feeding America, a hunger-relief organization headquartered in Chicago, to encourage health care facilities nationwide to donate excess to food banks. “You get to feed people who need it, and you're also cutting down on your environmental footprint and cutting down on waste,” she said. The food donations are part of Rush's mission to improve the health and well-being of the community, said Darlene Hightower, the hospital's associate vice president of community engagement and practice. The food donated from Rush supplements food the Franciscan Outreach receives from the Greater Chicago Food Depository and individual donations and helps provide a balanced diet, Jacob said.Ī Rush clinic at the shelter has for years provided basic health care. Now, it's down to about 30 pounds per day, she said. Only food cooked within 24 hours is donated, and it is refrigerated until it's delivered, according to hospital staff.īefore the program went into effect, Rush's three kitchens produced about 75 pounds per day of food waste, including unused prepared food, food scraps and spoiled food, a hospital spokeswoman said. Rush has also supplied 221 large serving trays of rice, vegetables, mashed potatoes, eggs and salad that the shelter can use in the 335 dinners and breakfasts it provides each day. The meals are delivered by Rush's shuttle bus to the shelter, Jacob said. Some days, a slice of pie or a doughnut is added. Typically, the boxed meal includes a chicken breast, potatoes or rice, and vegetables. In the first two weeks of the Surplus Project, nurses certified as food handlers volunteered to package 623 meals that included a protein, starch and vegetable, said Jennifer Grenier, director of nursing rehab at Rush and the project's founder. “It's meeting both the basic needs of individuals, but it's also providing them with an increased sense of dignity to help them in their journey toward independence,” said Ed Jacob, executive director of Franciscan Outreach, which runs a shelter and annex with more than 300 beds. Rush University Medical Center recently launched a project to donate leftover food from the three kitchens and cafeterias at its Near West Side campus to Franciscan Outreach, an organization that serves the homeless. Then they'll call each designated family to pick up their share.A Chicago hospital is serving up its extra food to those who are hungry. This time, Pirzada tries something new: He and other volunteers will put the rations in a church inside the slum. You can ask them to stay at a distance, but it doesn't work." "They will come close and they will try to grab onto you. And in previous distributions, people crowded around him. ![]() A Pakistani nonprofit, The Citizens Foundation, does the same but on scale, using its network of 1,600 low-cost schools to aid 700 villages and slums.īut this pandemic poses unprecedented challenges: Pirzada only has a flimsy mask because there's a global shortage of protective gear. So do leftist groups like Corona Solidarity Campaign and the Robin Hood Army. Individuals like Pirzada distribute food. ![]() ![]() An entrepreneur, Umer Hussain, makes free protective suits for medics. One woman, Irum Mumtaz, set up a quarantine ward for a public hospital, run by volunteers. Pakistan has registered 18 deaths from COVID-19 and has identified 1,650 cases of infection, according to government figures, but officials say the number of people with the coronavirus could be as high as 12,000. Pakistanis pride themselves on their volunteer culture, and days into countrywide shutdowns to halt the spread of the new coronavirus, citizens have sprung into action.
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