US: Student creates app to combat food waste
The 20-year-old American University sophomore is the co-founder of MEANS Database, which connects people, organizations, and businesses with extra food with food banks and pantries that need it. In its first year, the food recovery notification system rescued about 4,000 pounds of food; became the first non-profit to win the GW New Venture Competition; and just took home a $10,000 prize from L’Oreal Paris through its Women Of Worth campaign. (At the L’Oreal Paris celebration event last week, Belding was the youngest of the 10 honorees.) It’s also figuring out how to make enough money to become self sufficient, a rarity for non-profits.
MEANS operates through both a website and an app, creating a simple system: A donor lists what’s available, donees nearby get notifications, someone claims it and arranges for pick-up. As a high school freshman, Belding was volunteering at a local soup pantry in her hometown in Iowa, when she watched the director scramble to find recipients for the 10,000 boxes of macaroni and cheese a church had donated. Not everything found a home before the expiration date, and a lot ended up in the trash.
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