The staff at Brown Dining are conscious of the fact that there are mal-nourished and food insecure people in the world. In fact, according to the Rhode Island Food Bank, there are more than 30,000 food insecure children in the State alone. We know we are in a unique position when each day we process and serve over 4,000 meals. Our goal is to play an active role in helping all of Rhode Island to become more food-secure. Each week we donate appropriate leftover foods to The Rhode Island Food Bank, St. Elmo's Fire and to Food Not Bombs. We have participated in Campus Hunger Forums for many years and are proud co-organizers of Brown's Annual Holiday Food Drive.

Things You Can Do to Help Us Fight Hunger:

• Help us figure out how to reduce plate waste in the Dining Halls. Every day, students serve themselves far more food than they care to eat. This food does not make it into the "Pig Bucket" but instead goes directly into the trash. Develop a campaign! Send a message to your unit mates! Start a contest! We would love to work with you.
• Volunteer during the Holiday Food Drive (Mid-November to Mid-December). We need help spreading the word, collecting, sorting and transporting foods, rallying enthusiasm, gathering monetary donations for the Food Bank and cleaning up afterwards.
• Start a non-holiday food drive! The hungry in our community are hungry year-round--especially in the non-holiday season when people aren't making donations. Design a campaign for gathering food during Passover, Valentine's, Homecoming, Easter, your birthday... whenever!
• Help gather food from dorms and student houses at the end of Fall (December 1st to 20th) and Spring semesters (May 10th to May 20th). Enormous amounts of food are wasted when students leave town in a hurry. Help organize volunteers to get this food to the mouths that need it most.
• Help glean and transport surplus crops from local farms to local food kitchens. Each fall, more food is grown than than ever can get picked. Thousands of pounds of tomatoes can rot in the fields. Thousands of pounds of apples can fall from the trees and never make it to local mouths. You can help reduce food waste and fight hunger by organizing a work crew who will pick and transport these foods. Email Louella Hill for more details. *Work crews should be five or more people and must provide their own transportation and boxes for transport.
• Volunteer at Rhode Island Community Farm, a farm which grows fresh foods specifically for the Rhode Island Food Bank. The R.I. Community Farm needs help with publicity, outreach, transportation, program design, volunteer coordination and more. Contact Steve Connors, director. The R.I. Community Farm also accepts monetary donations.
• Write an editorial for the Brown Daily Herald, The Independent, Inside Brown, Brown Alumni Magazine, The Providence Journal. Speak up about the issue of hunger. Let the people around you know the urgency and the meaningfulness of working to fight hunger both locally and globally.

Think up your own creative idea! Let us know how we together can better address and end hunger. We are all ears (and all heart).