By Elena Flash, November 2024

Riding along with volunteer Vicki John on Wednesday afternoons provides a taste of the full circle impact of Friendship Donations Network (FDN).  Vicki, a lifelong Ithacan, became an FDN volunteer about 9 years ago.  Around then, the Statler’s head chef, Kris Escalante, was beginning to connect with FDN based on the impetus of a student who advocated the benefits of food recovery.  Vicki and Kris are a perfect pairing.  Vicki and her family are deeply engaged in service to Tompkins County through volunteer and professional activities.  Family, community and food are the cornerstones of their life. Chef Kris is, of course, passionate about food, and he is committed to promoting equitable distribution of food resources.  Having an opportunity to share the abundance of the high quality food created in his kitchen, aligns with his dedication to building and supporting community.  

The third point on this full circle is PROS – the Tompkins County Whole Health Center’s program for Personalized Recovery Oriented Services.  This program and its coordinator, Tammy Hulburt, provide support services to people 18 and over who have a mental health challenge and a goal that they are working on.  The program also offers nourishing food to participants in its family kitchen.  These three amazing people have developed a beautiful relationship that feeds hundreds of food insecure members of our community with rescued food. 

Vicki starts her Wednesday circuit at FDN to pickup the containers that are reused for this food recovery.  She then threads her way through the Collegetown afternoon traffic to the loading dock at the Statler Hotel. Chef Kris personally brings the carts to the dock loaded with prepared food leftover from the Statler cafes and/or events at the hotel that week.  The day of this interview there were huge trays of sandwiches and tacos and some pasta fresh off that day’s lunch buffet.  There were also several large containers of flank steak and chicken marsala.  The donated food is accumulated from Sunday until Wednesday, stored in the Statler refrigerators.  The other days any leftover prepared food is used to serve the Statler staff.  Yes, Kris feeds all his employees at what he calls their “Family Meal”.   Thank you to Cornell for supporting the re-distribution of this high quality beautifully prepared food to so many people. 

Vicki and Kris load her vehicle, and she navigates back through the student pedestrians to the Tompkins County Whole Health Center at 201 E. Green Street.  After a quick text: “here”, Tammy brings another cart to receive the bounty. Tammy takes as much as she can of the Statler food to use in the PROS family kitchen.  This homelike space has a huge refrigerator and 2 large freezers.  Tammy repackages some of the food for the freezers so it can be used for the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday hot meals that PROS staff and participants prepare and serve to 25-30 people each meal.  The rest of the Cornell food is available for participants to eat on site or to take home to their families.  For example, this Statler donation included trays of sweet potato tacos and pulled chicken sandwiches that can be eaten without any further preparation.  PROS also offers a baking class and a breakfast club.  Nearly all of this wonderful food for the PROS participants is sourced from FDN – much of it from Cornell’s Statler Hotel.  

Vicki concludes the circuit returning to FDN to drop off any food that PROS could not use so other food partners can take it – stretching even further the impact of the Statler donation.  

This circle of donation, rescue and reuse runs seamlessly.  Vicki, Kris and Tammy communicate via text about the amount of food that will be available each week and recruit extra help when needed. And most delightfully, they have become friends. 

When asked for an inspiring word, Vicki offered, “Just get up and volunteer – you might just make a friend for life.  There are lots of people in the world who are doing good that you wouldn’t ever meet.”  And Tammy reminds us, “People have conversations over food and often those conversations bring healing.”  

This triad of people- Vicki, Kris and Tammy – are shining examples of the very heart of FDN’s mission – abundance and generosity.