Our group project was focused around food waste reduction. We decided to connect a restaurant with a shelter to donate food and therefore reduce their food waste at the end of the evening. The ultimate goal was to connect a restaurant with a shelter and start a continuous relationship, but we weren’t able to make that happen beyond the few times we were able to distribute food to the shelters from the restaurants.
One of our primary obstacles was not being able to meet up regularly as a complete group because our group consisted of six different people all with various jobs and class schedules. We may have been more productive if we had been a smaller group but we managed to find ways so that everyone could work on something. Overall I think we had a decent impact on the local restaurants and shelters given our time constraints and scheduling problems. I personally wasn’t able to come to any of the pick-ups or drop offs of food but I helped with blog posts, calling shelters and restaurants for involvement, and with the powerpoint presentation.
I think our project really showed how systems thinking affects everything. Just to make one connection between a restaurant, coordination had to be done with the shelter for drop off times, the restaurant for pick up times, and our own time schedules and who had a car. I think it really is a good example of how our food system works today, it’s meant to be simplified, and if something was too complicated for one of the organizations we contacted, they wouldn’t work with us. Reducing food waste had to include the least amount of work for them as well. It’s understandable that the goal is to reduce work, but it should be a collective goal to make the world a little bit better, even if it involves a little more effort.