The Society of Saint Andrew, Inc.

A. Reducing food waste by keeping fresh, but commercially unmarketable fruits and vegetables out of landfills.
B. Ending hunger by meeting the short-term nutritional needs of our country's most vulnerable residents, providing fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables to supplement their diets, at no cost.
C. Engaging volunteers from all walks of life in simple, hands-on service that both reduces food waste and feeds hungry people
D. Empowering concerned individuals and faith communities to act and advocate for long-term, sustainable solutions to the entrenched environmental problem of food waste and the entrenched socio-political problem of hunger in this country.

A. Reducing food waste by keeping fresh, but commercially unmarketable fruits and vegetables out of landfills.
1. Building relationships with farmers, growers, packing houses, and trucking companies, by
2. Introducing the Society of St. Andrew and its work, and encouraging and/or incentivizing produce providers to work with the Society of St. Andrew to keep food they have grown or transported from going to waste by allowing diversion at the point where waste would occur.
B. Ending hunger by meeting the short-term nutritional needs of our country's most vulnerable residents, providing fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables to supplement their diets, at no cost.
1. Charting a nation-wide network of receiving agencies (soup kitchens, shelters, small local food pantries, large regional food banks, senior and child nutrition programs, emergency and disaster relief programs, etc.) to share or prepare and serve this good food with their clients/guests.
2. Developing a safe, simple, scalable, efficient, cost-effective, timely, replicable, and flexible process for getting food from the point of acquisition to the point of distribution that does not place undue burdens on either the produce donor or the produce recipient.
C. Engaging volunteers from all walks of life in simple, hands-on service that both reduces food waste and feeds hungry people
1. Establishing a simple, local, scalable, efficient, cost-effective, timely, replicable, and flexible system for mobilizing, notifying, training, engaging, supervising, and thanking volunteers in locations across the country to glean (pick, dig, or gather) or bag fresh fruits and vegetables at farms, packinghouses, or other point of acquisition near their home.
2. Continually and seasonally re-engaging volunteers in this work, maintaining contact in a way that continues to keep them interested in and energized about the work.
D. Empowering concerned individuals and faith communities to act and advocate for long-term, sustainable solutions to the entrenched environmental problem of food waste and the entrenched socio-political problem of hunger in this country.
1. Creating opportunities for volunteers to have hands-on involvement in reducing food waste and ending hunger through gleaning, correlated with opportunities for study, reflection, and action on root causes and long-term solutions.
2. Systematically connecting volunteers with partner 501(c)(4) organizations focused on advocacy around long-term, sustainable solutions to food waste and hunger.

The Society of St. Andrew (SoSA) has been engaged in all of these tasks for more than 40 years. Recognized as one of the most effective and efficient hunger relief organizations in the country, SoSA has demonstrated the capacity to
• Keep 15,000 or more tons of fresh produce out of landfills each year
• Provide 90-100 million servings of fruits and vegetables to agencies feeding hungry people in 48 states
• Work with 1,000 or more produce providers each year (some of these providers have shared excess and unmarketable produce with SoSA for more than 40 years)
• Engage tens of thousands of volunteers each year in at least 22 states in simple, hands-on service to reduce food waste and feed hungry people
• Offer volunteers opportunities for study, reflection, and action on root causes and long-term solutions to food waste and hunger, 700+ each year through Harvest of Hope mission/work camps and thousands more through the use of print and online resources developed and distributed by SoSA.
• Do all of this at a cost of just under 5¢ per serving of food distributed (2019), by generating funding and support from individuals, faith communities, corporations, and foundations across the United States.

Though we long for, and work day after day, for the time when there will be no hunger in this country, toward the time when no food will be waste, we know that the Society of St. Andrew's work will continue to be necessary and important to meet the short-term needs of millions of people who are struggling to get by.
We know that the fresh fruits and vegetables the Society of St. Andrew provides supply both calories and critical nutrients for hungry people, and we know that providing this good food to low-income individuals at no cost eases the burden of household expenses. It may also lead to better short- and long-term health outcomes, as it improves the quality of nutrition available to them.
We also know, through the work of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the ReFED report, and other recent, well-researched reports, that the volume of food waste in this country is staggering: more than 20 billion pounds of healthy, fresh, edible produce each year is left behind in fields and packing houses, graded out because it isn't pretty enough for grocery store sale, mispackaged, mislabeled, or misdirected in shipping, or even rejected at a distribution center or warehouse. This is food that, without intervention, will simply be left to rot in the field or dumped in a landfill.
We know the food is available, and we know there are hungry people in every part of the United States who would welcome the opportunity to eat it.
The challenges in diverting this food to share with hungry people are logistical and financial. 30+ years of consistent work and proven results demonstrate that the Society of St. Andrew has the knowledge, experience, geographic range, and flexibility to meet nearly every logistical challenge. That our produce recovery and distribution has been limited to 25-35 million pounds of food a year reflects solely financial constraints on our work. Our work is replicable and scalable, with no loss of efficiency. Growing the work depends solely on increasing the financial resources available to the Society of St. Andrew to do this work.