Say hello to Paxil, the home (and office) dog, shown here sporting a Food Rescue Columbus t-shirt during one of the weekly events.

Every week, for 2-3 days  a week, we've been volunteering for an organization called Food Rescue Columbus. Since the summer of 2019, we've been helping them take food that would ordinarily be thrown away, find its way to food pantries and community centers throughout Columbus. We, along with many other intrepid souls helping Food Rescue Columbus, have been focusing on two major initiatives:

• Every Friday, helping unload a semi (or two or three) of boxed food, load it in our cars and UHauls, and deliver it to food pantries and community centers around Columbus, and
• Twice a week, we pick up food from numerous restaurants and catering halls and take what would be thrown away, to food pantries and community centers.

There are literally hundreds of food pick-ups every month, so lots of folks are involved in this valiant effort. The beauty of it is folks can "adopt" a weekly food rescue (ie: Panera, The North Market, Kroger, Starbucks, etc.) which are located all over Columbus, or they can just pick up individual runs to get started and see what it's like.

See the videos we helped create for Food Rescue Columbus here.

The Friday events started in 2019 when the pandemic closed restaurants in Columbus and throughout the country. All of a sudden, there's was – literally –  tons of food that was no longer being bought by restaurants. Because of that, the USDA contracted with companies around the country to curate  millions of boxes of food. From those warehouses, trucking companies take them to drop points around the country to be distributed by Food Rescue US. We've been volunteering with the Food Rescue Columbus contingency, headed by fearless leaders Susan Swinson and Emily Rials: two individuals who never seem to tire of making our little corner of the world a better place.

Volunteering with Food Rescue Columbus has given us the opportunity to visit parts of Columbus we'd have never had known:

• The Crossroads World Outreach Ministries food pantry in Franklinton
• The Community Immigration and Refugee Center of Ohio
• The Bhutanese Community Center of Central Ohio
• African, Hispanic and Mexican Communities throughout Columbus, and
• Lots of individuals and communities who distribute food out of their individual homes and community centers

Below are the videos we've help create for Food Rescue Columbus along with videographer Todd Yarrington Studios with the theme "Food for Thought. Thought for Food."

Crossroads World Outreach Ministries a ministry that seeks to lift men and women out of the darkness and in to his light.

OSU StarHouse  provides local youth experiencing homelessness with a safe respite & the crucial connections to stabilizing resources—all in one .

Friends of the Homeless who provides support to homeless men and women through emergency shelter, transitional and supportive housing.

Interview with a Food Rescuer

Farmers to Families Program

Food donations from Dublin Methodist Hospital

Food Rescue to Promise House, who leads the way in providing youth in our community access to the most basic needs – shelter, nourishment and access to healthcare.

If you have an interest in getting involved, you can email either Susan Swinford or Emily Rials.