Most Ramaz students can probably agree that there is a lot of food at lunch and that many students, especially those with privileges, don’t always eat the hot food. Maya Puterman 25’ noticed this, and after finding out that the leftover food gets thrown out, she decided to start Fresh Opportunities, an organization dedicated to reducing food waste and to helping relieve food insecurity in our neighborhood. Fresh Opportunities is a student-run organization where volunteers package and deliver leftover food from school lunches to community fridges around the city. Hannah Katz, 27’, a frequent volunteer with Fresh Opportunities, said: “It is so rewarding to know that by doing something so simple as making a sandwich, you are making someone’s day and impacting their lives by helping them get back on their feet.”
Fresh Opportunities at Ramaz packages food during lunch on Wednesdays and Fridays after school, and students deliver the food to local community fridges. This year, Fresh Opportunities has already delivered 2,000 meals. Fresh Opportunities has also organized a canned food drive and delivered the canned food to local food pantries.
A central value of Fresh Opportunities is maintaining the dignity of the recipients of the meals. Volunteers label the food with the date and use clear packaging to make it obvious what type of food is in the package. Many Fresh Opportunities volunteers expressed how meaningful delivering food can be, especially when seeing the people who wait for food to be delivered. Keren Teichner, 25’, one of the leaders of Fresh Opportunities at Ramaz, described her experience volunteering with Fresh Opportunities. Teichner said, “I was delivering food, and a man came up to me and said, ‘Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to the people here and how much they appreciate it.’ This really made me realize that the work we have been doing is meaningful and has had a positive impact on our community.” Another one of the leaders of the club, Bianca Silvera, said, “One of my favorite experiences leading the Fresh Opportunities food packing was when Freshman had their Shabbaton and juniors had a lot of free periods so we got to package food all day and listen to music. We had such a great a time that we didn’t realize we had packaged over 170 meals. It was really meaningful to see the impact we were making ”
Maya Puterman, 25’, founder of Fresh Opportunities, is already planning to expand the program to other schools. She said, “Our goal for the future of Fresh Opportunities is to continue to empower more high school students, and even middle school students, to take action against food waste in their schools by providing them with the resources to distribute their school’s excess lunch. Our objective is to continue educating students about food waste and hunger in their communities and help them kickstart their school’s food recovery, packaging, and distribution, and guide them through the process.” In working to expand the program, Puterman has contacted schools around the city to encourage them to start new chapters of the group.
When asked about the expansion of Fresh Opportunities beyond Ramaz, Puterman explained: “We have students fill out a short application to start a Fresh Opportunities food packaging and delivery chapter at their schools. We then send interested students templates to reach out to school administrators about taking action against food waste. Once students get approval from their administration, we send them all of the resources to start and run their club. We send them everything from educational materials to packaging supplies and connect them with local community fridges to deliver their packaged meals to.”