Pimco Zero Hunger Challenge
Are you interested in the intersection between sustainability and hunger? Although the world produces a surplus of food there are huge problems relating to both hunger and food waste in communities across America and the world. Enter the Pimco Zero Hunger Challenge and design a solution to help food banks increase access to health, local food.
“Design a solution to help food banks increase access to healthy, local food by reducing waste, improving mobility, or promoting more sustainable and equitable food systems.
Approximately 15-30% of food in emerging economies is wasted: each year, while billions of pounds of food go to waste, 1 in 4 people face food insecurity. Communities in more developed economies also face these dual issues of food waste and food insecurity.
The food bank model is a critical intervention that represents an important part of the solution: local action for global change. Food banking systems attempt to address the problem of hunger by capturing surplus food and delivering it to the people who need it most.
To address the challenge of hunger, innovative local solutions are needed to help recover healthy, edible food that is being lost in local supply chains. Your challenge from PIMCO and The Global FoodBanking Network (GFN) is to come up with some of the innovative local solutions that are so desperately needed.”
How do I get started? Click here.
How do I expand this narrative arc? If you are deeply interested in the environment and the issue of food waste in particular, consider deepening and expanding your narrative arc with one of these:
Implement your big ideas in your home community and make a huge impact. For more information, download our PDF - Stand Out From The Pack - Ongoing Event-Based.
See our Food Waste To Feed post on helping your school and community reduce food waste and turn what is produced into animal feed.
Start a regular on-site composting program at your school. Finished compost can be used in school gardens or for school and community landscaping. Find out if there’s a composting non-profit near you that can help with some of the brainstorming and execution. Talk to local waste management and cafeteria workers. Have your school contract with a commercial composter who will pick up organic food waste and then divert it to larger composting operations.
Vermicompost! That means ‘use worms to create compost’. Create a low-cost worm bin at your school. Add small amounts of fruit and vegetable waste and watch the worms turn the material into vermicompost, which is the best type there is. Use the compost in the school garden.
Embark on a scientific research project to see how you canconvert your school cafeteria food waste to biofuel. This is an impressive one!
HOT TIP: This is an incredible way for you to bring your creative thinking and energy to a solution that could have a huge impact on your community and beyond. Talk about standing out from the pack!