These Boys Collect Untouched Excess Food From Parties To Distribute It Among The Hungry

Padmanaban Gopalan and his two friends, Sudhakar and Dinesh, have been collecting untouched excess food at events like weddings and parties and giving it to the hungry and poor since October, 2014. To date, the team has donated about 5,100 excess meals to families and individuals in Coimbatore, a southern Indian city.

What do they do?

Volunteers under Annadhana, No Food Waste’s recovery program, collect the untouched leftover foods and distribute them among the hungry and poor. Thus value is obtained from discarded food of immense importance which would otherwise have been wasted. If the food is not suitable for human consumption, it is sent for composting. By recycling, No Food Waste ensures that the bio-waste does not land into landfill sites thus preventing environmental damage by improving soil.

How do they do?

The trio reaches the respective collection point with their volunteers and necessary accessories depending on the food count along with their “FOODIVA”, a vehicle specially designed by the team for excess food collection.

“We initially check with the menu list and confirm number of food varieties to be collected. Then we check with the quality of food with respect to their preparation time. Once after our inspection we allot our volunteers for packing different varieties. We utilise only degradable and recyclable materials for food packing such as banana leaf, newspaper, paper roll, paper cups, jute bags and thick cardboard boxes. We promote individual packs of food e.g. separate packs for rice, sambar, poriyal, rasam and sweet per needy in case of a veg menu as it involves easy handling, distribution and can be easily placed in various FOODIVAS. After packing the foods we count them and segregate in separate bags or boxes to load in our Foodivas. Then after greeting the donor we leave the spot in groups and reach our spotted places such as ashrams, slums for food distribution (e.g. near G.H and Ramanathapuram) where one can find lots of hunger people even on the streets. We then distribute the food packs in order whole heartedly to them also insisting them not to waste food. Finally we leave the spot with their blessings, soul full of joy and true feel of service to the society.”

Is anyone helping them?

They are spending their own funds for packing and transporting the food. However, the trio’s selfless effort to end hunger has been recently given a $1000 grant from a US based NGO, Pollination Project, after public voting chose their project No Food Waste as the best initiative among 150 applications from across the world. The trio’s competitors included Mark Devries from New York, for Citizen Drone Project in which drones were used to gather information about factory farming methods; Maria Maneos from Eagleville, Pennysylvania, for Prison Arts program which is making a difference in the lives of prison inmates; and Samantha N Ngcolomba from Johannesburg, South Africa, for Lady Liberty in which attorneys were given a platform to help abused women.

What next?

On October 2, they launched a mobile application that would help people look for locations close by where extra food could be donated. They also launched the Zero Food Hour Campaign to create more awareness about not wasting food and donating to the needy. The team is also planning to expand their project to Tirupur, Erode, Salem, Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri.

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