Food Waste Weekend is September 21-23!

No, food waste weekend is not a weekend that advocates wasting food! Far from it. This is a nationwide event by faith communities in the U.S. to talk about the food waste dilemma in our country. (Perhaps you, too, saw this mentioned in a recent Minnesota Council of Churches newsletter.)

This event was first piloted in 2016 and asks that clergy from all faith communities speak about food waste from their own perspective during their weekly sermon. Clergy are asked to speak to the practical issues as well as the moral and ethical issues of food waste.

Food Waste Weekend is an education and awareness event sponsored by AmpleHarvest.org, a nationwide nonprofit working to reducing food waste through education, encouragement and connecting home and community gardeners in donating their excess harvest to food pantries. AmpleHarvest reports that 70% of the U.S. food pantries are based in or sponsored by a house of worship, so this event touches many of the churches in our synod, too.

Go to FoodWasteWeekend.org for information, publicity items, and specific calls to action which you can share with your congregation. You can also find more information at AmpleHarvest.org. Join the effort – make your congregation more aware of the issue of food waste and help bring food that might otherwise be simply tossed to people who are living with hunger.

Vernita Kennen

Incarnation Lutheran, Shoreview