WALLINGFORD — A middle school student has been doing his best to take a bite out of hunger by eliminating waste.
Students that are part of the capstone pilot program at Moran Middle School in Wallingford, are charged with coming up with a solution to a problem facing their school community.
“I immediately chose food waste in the cafeteria,” said Nick Lannone, an 8th grade student at Moran. “That was a pretty obvious problem to me.”
Lannone’s idea really hit home with the school’s principal.
“I’ve spent plenty of time in lunch waves and noticed kids that have a little less than everybody else, sometimes kids that have nothing at all some days,” said Joseph Piacentini, the Moran Principal.
A plan encouraging students to put their leftover, unopened food on a share table or in a cooler in the cafeteria, was approved by the school system. But, the list of approved items was tweaked by the state recently.
“We’ve been trying to work around them, but more than half the stuff that we put on the table would be eliminated following the (new) guidelines,” said Iannone.
Any pieces of fruit, without a peel, such as apples, are not permitted to be shared. The same holds true for any fruit or vegetables that are packaged by the lunch room staff. Unopened cartons of milk are also a no go.
“That was pretty disappointing,” said Piacentini.
According to an organization called Food Rescue, one billion food items are wasted in U.S. schools each year. The items left on the Moran share table, that don’t get taken, go to the Master’s Manna food pantry everyday.
While the school system investigates purchasing more commercially packaged items, that would be eligible to share, Nick soldiers on.
“I’ve been asked to take this to a national level and be a national leader on the subject and I plan on accepting that,” Iannone said.
Wallingford’s Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Salvatore Menzo, said the number of students requiring either free or reduced cost lunches in district has doubled since 2008.
