School lunch items to be donated to hungry

Tiny boxes of raisins and other unwanted lunchbox treats may avoid ending up in the trash can under a new Town of North Hempstead program.

Starting Thursday, more than 30,000 students at nine school districts will be able to donate their unwanted and unopened packaged, nonperishable food to local charitable pantries.

The town is placing "Food to Feed" boxes in 47 school cafeterias to collect unwanted lunchtime food. Donations from home also will be accepted, said Frances B. Reid, the town's director of environmental planning.

After the school districts collect the donations, the food banks will pick up the items.

"The whole idea is to reduce food that gets thrown out," North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman said. "If the kids aren't going to eat it, at least it's not going to waste."

The New York Mets and Giants paid for the cardboard-laminated collection boxes, which are decorated with the teams' logos.

"We realize the massive potential for food recovery and charitable awareness which such campaigns can provide," Jill Knee, the Mets' director of community outreach, said in a news release.

Through the town's recycling partnership program, most schools recycle bottle caps, paper and other items. A plan to compost open, uneaten food is in the works, Kaiman said.

Food to Feed is modeled on Rock and Wrap it Up!, a Cedarhurst group that collects prepared but unused foods from music venues, sports stadiums and schools for distribution to charitable agencies.

"They had the model and we had the partnership with the schools," Reid said.