A food waste reduction program developed by students in Clarke County middle schools and AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers with the Office of Service-Learning and Cooperative Extension at UGA will be adopted by the school district as a best practice model for all schools. In 2014, the school garden VISTA mobilized resources and trainings for school teams of students, teachers, and staff to begin collecting food waste for school compost. Then in 2015, the middle schools, with support provided from VISTAs, started a fruit and food redistribution program. This program focused on student and staff collection of uneaten fruit and other food and drinks before they went into the compost or trashcan and redistribution of this food and drink to hungry kids in the school.
