Vacation Donations has two missions. One is to reduce vacation rental food and item waste and increase donations in our own community of Indian Rocks Beach, Florida. The other important goal is to raise awareness about the issue regionally, in the state and across the country. (Next up, the world! Why not?)
To do that, I talk to folks in a variety of resort/vacation communities to learn about their specific situations and how they might apply some of our best practices. Every place is different, and it’s super helpful and invigorating to exchange ideas with others. Those chats have led to partnerships in Siesta Key and Pass-A-Grille in Florida, and Oak Island, North Carolina. With more to come!
Recently I had conversations with people who care about food waste and food donations in Maine and on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. These areas are very familiar to me because I lived in Boston for 15 years (1988-2003). I’d say that the big difference between travelers to those states vs. Florida is that more people fly into Florida, whereas New England attracts a lot of visitors already in the northeast. Not exclusively, just generally. And, in general, there’s greater waste issue among people who fly. But it’s still an issue with drivers as well.
In Maine, I spoke with Susanne Lee and Kathryn Busko. Susanne is a Faculty Fellow at University of Maine’s Sen. George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions. She’s also the program lead for Food Rescue Maine, whose mission is to provide sustainable solutions to food waste (yes!!). Kathryn is a student there and the Communication and Education Intern for Food Rescue team. We talked about how Maine has a lot of old-fashioned cottages, often in little clusters. Those could be good places to start with some kind of food collection bin. We also discussed Bar Harbor, the gateway city to Acadia National Park and a charming coastal town in its own right. Maine has about 1.4 million residents. In 2022, 6 million people went to Acadia. So, yeah, you can bet there are a lot of vacationers with leftover food. Bar Harbor has a rather amazing food pantry that even accepts perishables. Seems like a match made in donation heaven to me. Susanne and Kathryn are putting their thinking caps on. I can’t wait to see the results!
Meanwhile, Cape Cod remains a popular vacation spot, with about 230,000 residents and 5.5 million yearly visitors. Again, that means there’s food that vacationers can’t take home with them. There, I spoke with Kari Parcell, Solid Waste and Recycling expert for the Massachusetts Dept. of Environmental Protection and Barnstable County. She’d come to my webinar via Food Waste Prevention Week and was interested in hearing more. She invited Andrea Marczely , Food Access Coordinator at Cape Cod Cooperative Extension. During our talk, I was delighted to hear that the Cape has several community fridges. I hope vacationers will be told about these, as they are great donation sources. We discussed a possible pilot program at a motel that houses both seasonal workers and vacationers. I’d forgotten how many seasonal workers from away are there every summer and can barely afford housing. So there you have a ready-made donation pool (vacationers) and those in need (seasonal workers). Kari followed up later to say they’d spoken with a group in Falmouth interested in some version of Vacation Donations. Even to have people thinking about the possibilities is wonderful!
I’ll be reaching out to other communities in the future, and anyone is of course welcome to contact me. Here’s to less food waste and more vacation donations!