Provided by Northern Virginia Food Rescue
Northern Virginia Food Rescue (NOVA-FR) has been working with the Food Rescue Hero team in Pittsburgh to develop a brand new app that would allow for multi-county food rescue programs. The previous Prince William Food Rescue app had been used for the past two years to address the disconnect between the 40% of food that is wasted and the one in five who are hungry. During this time, hundreds of volunteers used the app to rescue over 2.5 million pounds of food and redirect another 15 million pounds of food to over 70 food distribution partners throughout Greater Prince William County.
“We don’t feed people directly, but we support organizations on the front lines that do. We knew that if our model was successful here then surrounding counties would also benefit from the technology and we would want to figure out a way to expand our operation,” said CEO Aaron Tolson. “Responding effectively during the pandemic just sped up the timeline.”
The new app is now available for download on both the Apple Store and Google Play. Users can select whether they want to be notified of food rescues available through the Prince William Food Rescue and/or the Fairfax Food Rescue programs as they setup their profile. The next step is to claim an available rescue and simply follow the steps in the app from picking up the food to dropping it off at predetermined distribution sites. An average rescue only takes about 45 minutes to complete. Other counties will be added to the app, beginning with Fauquier County in spring 2022.
Follow on social media: @novafoodrescue @pwfoodrescue @fxfoodrescue
