Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

Our project is Refood Movement (RM) and it‚ a 100% volunteer, micro local, citizen driven effort, working to end food waste, feed people and empower each local community to transform itself into a more socially and environmentally responsible society. Through RM, each community creates a true circular economy, where Refood volunteers collect surplus food from partners/food sources (restaurants, cafeterias, supermarkets, large distributors, eg), package them and deliver it to needy families. The adoption of these sustainable practices results in the reduction of food waste and pollution, while at the same time securing quality nutrition for local needy families in need.

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One of the RM‚ values is Equality (the others are: Respect, Inclusion, Sustainability, Service and Gratitude) and our founding charter includes the following statement: All people who align with our founding principles are welcome to participate in the RM, regardless of their color, gender, age, sexual orientation, faith (or the lack thereof) or economic condition . 

In practical terms, nearly 70% of RM‚ volunteers are women, more than half of the local coordinators are women, the same is true of the executive team members. The Director team, while currently composed of 3 men and 2 women, has been previously composed of 3 women and 2 men. 

RM has had people of color in management and coordinating positions all along. Sylvester served for years as a coordinator in our first local center and Ant nio is currently coordinator in another center (these are only a few examples, we do not track our volunteers by race or ethnic origin). As for youth, one co-founder was 18 years old and another member of the first Director team was still in high school when the project first incorporated. Technically, Catarina‚ mother served on the board, because she was too young to legally serve, but she (as a teenager) weighed in on debates and voted as an equal. Another of our earliest volunteers, In√™s, was also in high school when she began volunteering at the first local center, two years later, when we began to expand, In√™s was the lead pioneer and first coordinator in a new center in her community (she went on to found her own social project against Bullying while at university). 

We are equally proud of volunteers on the other side of the age spectrum. Many retirees find new purpose and new energy by serving as volunteers, managers, coordinators and as executives throughout the RM. 

Our first international intern, Mustafa, from Cairo, Egypt, who is an IT genius, drew the initial map of how to track Refood‚ data and our current Digital Revolution (being implemented years later) has followed his model. 

Our beneficiary population is equally varied ‚ no one is excluded: we serve the chronically poor, the newly poor, those retirees whose pensions do not suffice to meet their needs, students who lack the resources to pay their way and still eat, members of ethnic communities who have not adapted to the mainstream economy, homeless people or refugees from all over the world (Syria, Africa, Eastern Europe, South America ‚Ä¶). We believe that everyone has the right to be respected and fed, regardless of their condition, characteristics and individualities. 

RM turns no one away. 
We don‚ t impose boundaries between our volunteer and beneficiary populations, that is to say that beneficiaries can, and sometimes do, serve as volunteers ‚ in some cases after their time of need as passed and in other cases concurrently. 

Perhaps the best thing about RM is that inclusion is in our DNA. We are proud to be a true reflection of the communities we serve.

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