From left to right, our Office of the Provost team members pictured are: Rylee Kenney, Caroline Maloney, Rev. Bob Sullivan, Ron Metoyer, Maria Di Pasquale, Michael Pippenger, Beth Schneider (she is in the pink, in the back), Margaret Meserve, John McGreevy, Joe Gettinger, Jenny Meert, Kate Garry, Jim Frabutt, Chloe Leach, Keona Lewis, Demetra Schoenig, Allie Richthammer, Rich Forrester and Mike Hildreth.
On Tuesday, June 18, members of the Office of the Provost took part in their summer service project at Cultivate Food Rescue. Cultivate “rescues” food donated by Notre Dame and other area businesses, and uses that food to package meals to provide to schoolchildren.
Cultivate services 55 schools in 12 school corporations in St. Joseph, Elkhart and Marshall counties. The food provides meals to 1,350 children on reduced or free lunch.
“Cultivate Food Rescue is a worthy cause, and this was a great way for the Provost’s Office team to build community while serving the greater South Bend area,” said John T. McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost.
Cultivate recently announced the opening of its new 22,000-square-foot cold storage facility at 1403 Prairie Ave. in South Bend. With the addition of the state-of-the-art facility, Cultivate will be able to rescue more than 47 million dollars’ worth of nutritious meals. This amounts to 20 million pounds of perishable food annually, 10 times more than the prior year.
“Our team was so grateful to be able to take a step back from our busy schedules and give something back to the local community, packing over 1,000 breakfasts and lunches for their backpack program,” said Rylee Kenney, academic initiatives program manager and organizer of the service outing. “The staff and volunteer team at Cultivate are so professional and easy to work with.”
If your office team or your family would like to volunteer with Cultivate, visit them online and sign up through this link. Volunteers can pack food, as the provost’s office team did, or make donations to cultivatefoodrescue.com.