Anne Langebartels

“May this date, then, December 16, 1994, always be remembered as a monumental moment for addressing hunger locally—today, tomorrow, forever.” —Frank Lalor

A simple question begins a food rescue and distribution solution.

After watching C-SPAN coverage of a congressional hearing on food waste and hunger in America, Frank Lalor visited the Free Lunch Program of Iowa City and met its director at the time, Meg Kiekhaefer. Frank asked Meg if they could use more food.

“I was excited about it,” Meg remembers. “I said, ‘We’re always short on food, we could use it.’ He asked, ‘Could some of the other social service organizations use food?’ I said, ‘Well, yeah!’”

In 1995, Frank and Meg brought together community activists, dietitians, chefs, and potential donor and recipient agencies.

In October, they held their first meeting. All agreed that rescuing food in the Iowa City area was worth pursuing. They defined four initial goals:
• Distribute food to those in need, especially food that would otherwise go to waste,
• Identify organizations in the area that serve food,
• Determine how to collect and distribute this food, and
• Research how to secure funding.

In April 1996, Table to Table was granted nonprofit status in the State of Iowa and opened its first office in Old Brick in a space that was formerly a storage closet. With a small desk, a phone, and an answering machine, this space served as a home base for coordinating food deliveries.

Meg Kiekhaefer became the first T2T director. Volunteers used their personal vehicles—mostly station wagons and vans—for collection and distribution of food. T2T rescued 44,000 pounds of food that first year.

“In the beginning we didn’t have much, but we had heart!” – Frank Lalor

Just three ingredients in our recipe for food rescue success

Lessons learned from our first director Meg Kiekhaefer and current director Nicki Ross

Over the years, we’ve turned fortune and goodwill into nearly 30 million pounds of recovered food. What were the ingredients of that success?

Collaboration

In the early days, T2T leaders had a simple edict, as Meg says: “Don’t step on toes.” To seek collaboration and fill unmet needs has become one of our core values. Nicki adds, “We build our operation around what partners want and need without duplicating their good work.” Once it became clear partnership was our goal, new partners of all kinds turned to Table to Table.

Coordination

Very quickly we learned that scheduled routes worked more efficiently than a one-off approach. Logistical coordination to pair resources and needs makes the most of each food donation. Nicki notes, “Expert coordination increased overall efficiency.” And Meg adds, “Better utilization of volunteers, always in short supply.”

Community

Warmth, kindness, and gratitude have built a community invested in food recovery, and volunteers are at the heart of that. As Meg has seen, “Volunteers were and continue to be shining ambassadors. Their personal connections with the donors and nonprofit staff on their routes are priceless.”

By Charlotte Fairlie, current Table to Table volunteer

While Table to Table’s mission statement focuses on alleviating hunger, increased understanding of the contribution of food waste to climate change has led to greater awareness of our positive environmental impact. Rescuing food reduces resource use as well as emissions at both the production and landfill stages of the food system. Even accounting for our present fleet of conventional vans, we are significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. According to a 2019 study, “The yearly total emissions saved after T2T vehicular inputs is equivalent to the CO2 emissions from 17,400 pounds of coal burned or more than 2 million smartphones charged or about 39,000 miles driven by an average passenger vehicle” (Ayers, Thomas, Wiener).

Over our next 25 years, we will continue doing our part to help Iowa City reach its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

As far back as 1999, T2T leaders were focused on education and the global good. In a related memo that year, Frank Lalor remarked, “It’s great getting pounds and pounds of food, but from an ecological and global point of view, we have much to learn. Perhaps our group can focus on these points, and thus help to make the world locally and globally a better place.”

Table to Table’s route-based food rescue is a unique model that matches food donations directly to recipients during each three-hour route. In traditional models, the food is brought back to a warehouse where recipient partners place an order and pick it up later in the week. Or these partners pick up food donations directly from a store, using their own resources, and all donations from a store go to a single recipient agency. Sometimes it’s not enough food and sometimes it’s more of one item than a single agency is able to use.

Route-based rescue matches the right amount of food to the right partners immediately. The benefits of this model are many; it reduces waste by getting food to tables more quickly, allows partners to choose what fits their needs, and increases variety for the entire system. Food rescue efforts in similarly-sized communities using other models are usually unable to reach the efficiency or food donation totals that we experience here in Johnson County. Our daily delivery schedule increases food donations and allows recipient agencies to refill their limited storage repeatedly during the week.

In our early years, consolidating local food rescue to Table to Table wasn’t easy. “It took convincing,” says David Wellendorf, T2T Volunteer & Transportation Manager from 2002-2017. “You needed to convince the donor and recipient that this will work while looking at your logistic means to make sure you don’t oversell your ability…It’s a big puzzle.”

We asked David, how did you do it, in the beginning?

“Tenaciousness.” That’s how it happened, he says. “And we loved it.”

David, what kept you engaged and loving the work?

“The volunteers—Are you kidding? The passion of each person coming in and saying, ‘I want to make a difference.”

The volunteer route-based model is essential to food rescue success. This year, volunteers provided over 20,000 hours of service at Table to Table.

Developing and maintaining a stable workforce of volunteers is critical to the success of the T2T operation.

As David says of those early years, “Logistically we could’ve set the world on fire, but our logistical abilities outpaced the money we could bring in.” Volunteers were critical, but by 2016 not having enough staff or space to manage those complicated logistics was holding the organization back. That year, T2T recovered nearly two million pounds of food with three staff in a 700-sq. ft. basement office — a truly remarkable feat, but unsustainable.

Fortunately, T2T had proven that this crazy idea could work, and with the support of our community grew our resources to make large scale food rescue sustainable. In 2002, T2T was running two routes each day. Now, we run about 45 routes a week. How? With the same community dedication and partnerships that launched Table to Table 25 years ago–only now with six staff, 100+ food donor partners, 50 recipient partners, and 150+ regular volunteers.

In the 1990s, New Pioneer Food Co-op donated produce for soup directly to the Iowa City Free Lunch Program.

“The Co-op was made up of very community-minded people, very aware of community issues, so they worked to get leftover food to organizations that would get it to people who needed it,” Theresa Carbrey, former Education Director at New Pi and T2T founding member, says. When the idea for a centralized network of food recovery began to form in the mid-90s, Theresa and New Pi were immediately on board as one of our first donors and continue to this day.

“Because Table to Table exists, we don’t have to ‘figure it out’ – food transport, etc.,” explains Amy Hospodarsky, Brand Manager at New Pi. “Table to Table fills a gap that we don’t have to.”

New Pi commits to food recovery as part of their mission to serve the community with a sense of environmental and social responsibility. “We were founded with values that include being responsible stewards of the food we eat and the land we use,” says Amy. “Table to Table helps us reduce food waste and gives people access to natural food products.”

“Our mission marries up so closely with T2T,” Amy continues. “We do appreciate how important it is that T2T exists – we did then, we still do now.”

Iowa food producers have become an integral part of the Table to Table recovery network and a valuable resource for fresh foods. T2T now partners with 10+ local producers who expand our offerings to include fresh produce, Old Capitol tofu, Kalona Supernatural organic milk, Oasis hummus, DeLuxe Cakes and Pastries and more.

After their weekly retail deliveries in Johnson County, Hansen’s Dairy, based out of Hudson, Iowa, delivers milk from their family farm directly to T2T. Their fresh-off-the-farm dairy products are highly desirable for recipient agencies.

Echollective Farm, a local organic vegetable farm, not only invites T2T volunteers to glean produce from their fields, but also delivers extra produce directly to T2T. “In 2021, Echollective Farm donated nearly twenty thousand pounds of produce to local nonprofits, and we truly could not have done this without the support of Table to Table…Giving us one accessible, easy place to donate produce is truly invaluable,” writes Molly Schintler, farmer at Echollective. “Without Table to Table, our food would reach far fewer members of our community.”

Finding ways to increase access to fresh produce has been a part of the operation since the early days. In 2001, AmeriCorps service member Rosemary Randolph started nine gardens in multiple Iowa City neighborhoods. These gardens grew 2,000 pounds of produce during the growing season.

In recent years, T2T has partnered with local farmers to harvest produce remaining in their fields – referred to as “gleaning.” “I knew that would be a really good fit for me—working outdoors to rescue food with a great group of people,” says Karen Jackson, T2T volunteer.

Gardeners are also encouraged to donate their excess homegrown fruits and vegetables to T2T or even “grow a row” to donate.

With increased fresh produce from gleaning and garden donations, T2T organizes neighborhood Free Produce Stands in partnership with local pantries and neighborhood centers, reducing barriers to fresh produce access. “We can harvest hundreds of pounds in a day and then distribute it for people to have fresh food on their tables that night,” Karen says.

Last summer, a recipient sent us a note that read, “I just wanted to let you know those tomatoes made 149 cups of blanched chunks to make lots of soup and sauces for lasagnas and spaghetti for the 18 people we share homemade food with.”