NASHUA – Officials at the United Way of Greater Nashua are continuing their battle against food waste and food insecurity with a new initiative that will soon kick off throughout the Nashua School District.

Share Carts, the first program of its kind in the Granite State, will be unveiled at 11:30 a.m. Nov. 22 at Pennichuck Middle School. The initiative is a project of the student-led Meals Matter program out of Nashua High School South, and has been in the works for more than six months.

The innovative approach allows students to share unwanted items from their school meals with other students by placing them on the Share Carts. Most of the carts should be in place in the city’s 16 school cafeterias by year’s end.

“We have a team of students from the Meals Matter program – mostly kids from Nashua South – and they have put together training materials about how the program works and how each school can implement the program,” said United Way of Great Nashua President Mike Apfelberg. “Each school will get a Share Cart with a mini fridge that goes with it and instructions for each grade level, along with dos and don’ts and what they can and can’t have on the carts.”

“Next week, we’ll be bringing carts out to the schools,” Apfelberg added. “Each school will decide who will be in charge of the Share Carts and have a designated person for the program.”

The effort is made possible through support from the Rotary Club of Nashua, the Nashua Teacher’s Union, Southern New Hampshire Health and the United Way. The carts have been approved by the Department of Public Health and the school district’s food services department.

“The carts were not as expensive as you might think,” Apfelberg said. “I think it ended up costing about $20,000 total. Some carts were more expensive because of the size of the refrigerator unit. It was an easy collaboration, though, to get the project funded.”

Meals Matters formed to assist with student lunch debut and with students falling through the cracks in the schools’ lunch programs. Meals Matters is a fiscal agency partner of the United Way of Greater Nashua.

“The carts are for all the schools in the district – elementary, middle and high schools,” Apfelberg said. “It’s really to teach kids about food waste, social responsibility and the value of sharing.”

“There’s a lot of stigma associated with being the kid that doesn’t have money for food. Not everyone is eligible for free or reduced lunch,” Apfelberg added. “There are those that don’t quite qualify for that. We are targeting them with this program, but also kids that may just not be full after lunch. We don’t want kids going to their next class hungry. That doesn’t provide for the best educational outcome.”

For more information, contact Apfelberg at 603-864-0202.

Matthew Burdette may be reached by phone at 603-594-1240 or by email at mburdette@nashuatelegraph.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Telegraph_MattB.

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