Surplus into Sustenance: Starkville Strong’s new initiative
Transforming surplus into Sustenance- that is the slogan of Starkville Strong's new initiative Second Servings.
STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Transforming Surplus into Sustenance- that is the slogan of Starkville Strong’s new initiative Second Servings.
The idea was born 2 years ago by Executive Director Brandi Herrington as a new way to fight food insecurity in Starkville.
“We know that there is a lot of food waste here in Starkville. Think about at the end of football games in the concession areas, how many things have to be thrown away. And I used to be a science teacher so the environment is very important to me and we see a lot of that waste as a missed opportunity to redistribute to those in need in our town,” Herrington said.
Recently, the organization, in conjunction with Worker Bees in Starkville, conducted a trial run using leftovers donated from the Chi Omega sorority.
“We take what they give us and repurpose it into a meal and the most recent success with that is we got baked potatoes and a random dip and Shannon from Worker Bees, our point person for the project, created 50 plates that feed 50 people with just baked potatoes and donated dip from a Greek life facility,” Herrington said.
Herrington said that they are just getting started.
They have already seen interest from local businesses and organizations but are looking for more and more volunteers.
“We’ve had a lot of interest. So we have created an interest form and then we will organize that and figure out to get our network of volunteers together and our network of assembly members together and then the distribution. We are hoping to partner with other local community service organizations to possibly, especially when it gets up and going. We have a lot to distribute, how to meet the needs of their clients as well,” Herrington said.
If you would like to volunteer, you can go to starkvillestrong.org.
