April marks our 33rd Birthday at Food Finders!

On April 1st, to kick off the month, we launched our annual Birthday Campaign to help grow our food rescue operations. When you think about all that has happened over 33 years—one woman starting to collect food in her garage to now where we are rescuing food with refrigerated trucks then sorting and packing donated food in a square food warehouse—we are certain to meet all of our goals and make an impact on reducing food waste and hunger here in Southern California!

Growth in our 33rd year is a priority. Now more than ever we are working together to make a strong social impact that will affect future generations to come!

Growing Our Food Operations

As you may know, our mission here at Food Finders is to eliminate hunger and food waste through food rescue. This operation is led by our wonderful team of passionate and dedicated volunteers, donors, partner agencies, community members–and of course, an incredible group at our office and warehouse in Los Alamitos. This month we will be highlighting a different aspect of our operations each week and spotlighting key team members who run the operation.

What is the overall goal?

Our goal is to raise $75,000 towards our food rescue operations. While I know this may seem like a large amount of money, it is going to a good cause. In 2021, for example, we had a goal to raise $50,000 and our grand total was $62,454–a huge success that allowed us to rescue 15, 917, 982 Pounds of Food!!

Our focus for this year is on our operations.

In 2022, the State of California SB- 1383 went into effect. SB 1383’s statute requires businesses in certain categories to begin the repurposing of not less than 20% of edible food that they currently dispose of be recovered for human consumption.

We have a new Food Acquisitions Team to meet the demand: Tray Turner and Mark Eden, who are out meeting with our current Food Donors while also updating our processes and adding in new businesses each day.

In the month of January, our Food Acquisitions department started off with some amazing numbers:

Food Finders Rescued – 1,238,000 Pounds of Food – that is over 1 Million Meals that were delivered by our non-profit partners in January 2022. And in addition to rescuing and repurposing food (that normally would have ended up in a landfill), we also helped planet Earth – 672,410 Pounds of CO2 diverted as well as 564,675,000 Gallons of water saved!

Inside the Food Finders Warehouse

The Food Finders Warehouse is a busy place. On any given day, there will be volunteers sorting and packing bags or boxes while trucks are pulling up in the back to deliver pallets of food. Without our invaluable warehouse team, though, we would not be able to rescue as much food as we have in the past 33 years that Food Finders has been operating.

Cesar Herrera, our Warehouse Manager, runs the show where he is constantly moving and shifting around staple food items to our food programs. These items significantly increase depending on the time of day, week or year. Last week, we had Fox News Channel 11 visit us to talk about our work and relationship with the Kaiser Permanente Food Donors.

Our Birthday Milestone is Important

With your birthday donations last year, we were able to continue to grow as COVID was winding down, and this year we are on track to grow our team, update and purchase more food delivery trucks, and rescue more food as the demand from businesses rises in 2022.

Make a donation below or Text: FF33Bday to 71444.

Want Another Way To Help Us Make An Impact?

In the digital age it is so easy to support and advocate for Food Finders.

The largest Social Media Network, Facebook, has a great personal fundraising tool that gives each one of us the power to make change by enlisting our family and friends in the fight against hunger, food waste and the resulting global problems from both.

Start A Personal Fundraiser

Facebook Fundraising

If you invited 10 friends to donate $10 to your “Fight Hunger” fundraiser, you would be providing 11,000 meals to help fight food insecurity in your community.

Visit this link for step by step instructions on how to set up a birthday fundraiser on Facebook.

Mobile Fundraising

For those of you who do not have a Facebook page, use your Mobile Phone!

Here is a link to the Food Finders Crowdfunding Page. The process is the same–set up your personal page and ask 10 friends to make a $10 (or more) donation to help us continue to rescue food and help to feed the communities in our neighborhood.

Celebrate Our 33 Years

Stay tuned during the entire month of April to learn about each part of our Food Rescue Operations. Start your fundraiser, or reach out to us to volunteer! Everything we do makes an impact.

Nicole Swayne is a Digital Marketing Intern at Food Finders. She is a student at Cal State Long Beach.