By Jan Nigro, 2025

When I first joined FDN several years ago, Art Pearce was the first person to help me learn the ropes. I didn’t know at the time that he had been involved with FDN for many years. “In 2009, Sara Pines approached me and several others explaining that she needed help figuring out how to move FDN forward. She’d been doing it pretty much as a one person show with her husband helping and she just didn’t feel that it could continue that way for that much longer.”  Art worked with several other people looking at alternatives for how FDN could be merged into another organization. After two months of doing that, Judy Dietz and Art and a couple of others felt that the only viable solution was to create a formal organization, incorporate, establish a board of directors and move forward as an independent entity. So that was the beginning of FDN as a not-for-profit corporation and it’s gone from there. 

He has done a variety of tasks in his time with FDN. ” I continue to serve on the board.  I cover the phones periodically some weekends and when Meaghan is on vacation. I do occasional pickups. I am one of the people that spend a lot of time concerned with the facility itself. It’s repair and upkeep.”

Art has a passion for the simple but profoundly important purpose of FDN.  “I love the idea and the process of collecting and distributing surplus food that would otherwise get thrown away. It’s just such a satisfying thing. I also really like the people that are involved in FDN. It’s a wonderful group of people from various backgrounds – all with a shared concern about food waste and a positive “can do” attitude.”

Art has been here in Ithaca for many years serving the community in various ways. “In 1971, I left a job working on Wall Street and decided to go back to school and study urban planning.  I’d been out of school for six or seven years and so I was returning as an older student. I spent two years at Cornell to get a master’s degree in urban planning.  I moved up here from New York City with my wife, Katy, and one young daughter, Susanna. (Susanna is now an FDN volunteer!) We thought we would be here for two years at most, and then here we are more than 50 years and 3 more children later. One of the things people don’t know about me is that I was the founding executive director of Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services. 

As far as life outside of FDN? “Well, I live in an old house, part of which dates back to 1866. So I have spent a lot of time maintaining and improving it over the years. I love traveling with Katy, especially to visit our children, and sailing. I also play some awful golf, but enjoy it.”