Chillicothe, OH – Ross County Health District’s (RCHD) Creating Healthy Communities (CHC) Coordinator, Jordan George, and Community Health Worker, Sage Fout, have partnered with Unidine Corporation, hospitality service of Adena Regional Medical Center, to help combat food waste in Ross County.

“According to Feeding America, 92 billion pounds of food goes to waste each year,” Jordan articulated. “Our partnership with Unidine implements a concept called food rescue: the practice of collecting good, safe-to-eat food that would have been discarded from different industries and distributing it back to the community via local social service agencies. With the brain power of several different folks in our community including United Way and Good Samaritan Food Pantry, Sage and I were able to adopt a plan to rescue the hospital’s food that would've otherwise gone to waste,” Jordan explained.

On Thursday, February 26, Sage helped load the first food drop for Jordan to deliver from Adena Regional Medical Center to Good Samaritan Food Pantry in Chillicothe, where Jordan was met by United Way of Ross County’s Andrea Williams (CEO and President) and Trevor Clark (Community Impact Manager) and Good Samaritan Food Bank’s volunteer Katie Barnes and General Manager Mike Thompson to help unload the delivery. “This is all about partnership and everybody stepping up to do the right thing,” stated Andrea Williams, CEO and President of United Way of Ross County. Food rescue donations from Adena to Good Samaritan Food Bank are currently on a biweekly basis.

RCHD Health Commissioner Janelle McManis expressed her support of the food rescue initiative: “This pilot shows what’s possible when healthcare, nonprofits, and public health work together. Reducing food waste while improving access to nutritious foods is good for families and for our environment. We appreciate our partners’ leadership and invite other organizations to join us.”

After helping unload the delivery, Good Samaritan Food Pantry General Manager, Mike Thompson, gave Jordan and the United Way partners a tour of the food bank facility. “We’ve got almost 60 new families coming already this month. Last year we had 947 new unduplicated families coming to the food bank,” Mike explained during the tour. “I think some people don’t realize we’re here,” stated Mike. “We serve Ross County individuals only; we serve our people first. I encourage people who don’t know we’re to come in and check us out and see what’s going on. We’ll be happy to help,” Mike concluded.

Implementing food rescue in a larger capacity is one of the goals of the Ross County Food Network, a group that RCHD CHC Coordinator Jordan George and the United Way have been working to regenerate that once served the area. The group has been meeting to discuss how to organize the group and best tailor it to the community’s needs. The group is made up of community agencies and individuals partnering together to identify food waste and how to best distribute it back into the community to be used.

Laws that have been put in place to protect business owners and community members who donate food in good faith to those in need. The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act is a federal law passed in 1996 created to protect food donors from civil and criminal liability when food is donated in good faith to nonprofit organizations as long as the food was safe to eat at the time of donation, even if the product later causes harm. Additionally, the 2023 Food Donation Improvement Act strengthened the liability protection for food donors by extending protections to cover donations made to individuals and groups that are not nonprofits.

RCHD’s CHC program supports active living and healthful eating strategies to reduce and help prevent chronic disease throughout our community. Via cross-sector collaboration, CHC activates communities to improve access to and affordability of healthful food, increase opportunities for physical activity, and promote active forms of transportation. The CHC program is funded through the Ohio Department of Health who receives this program-specific funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Preventative Health and Health Services Block Grant.

Additional CHC community projects include Jordan George’s facilitation of the Book-a-Bike program in partnership with the Chillicothe Ross County Public Library (CRCPL) and the City of Chillicothe, as well as facilitating the Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, which is dedicated to advancing biking opportunities in Ross County as well as making biking safer, more accessible, and a key part of transportation and recreation. For more information about the CHC Program and all other RCHD programs and services, please visit www.rosscountyhealth.org.

Any businesses or community members who are interested in donating food can bring donations to Good Samaritan Food Pantry located at 255 N Woodbridge Avenue, Chillicothe, OH 45601.  Monetary donations to assist with food rescue and/or food insecurity can be made online to United Way of Ross County via www.unitedwayross.org/donate. Anyone interested in getting involved with Ross County food rescue or the Ross County Food Network can contact RCHD CHC Coordinator Jordan George at 740-775-9652 ext. 2284 or email jgeorge@rosscountyhealth.org.

The Ross County Health District strives to improve the health and safety of our community through education, prevention, policy, and partnerships. For more information about our programs and services, please visit our website at www.rosscountyhealth.org.

Link to article

More information:

Food Waste in America: How You Can Help Rescue Food | Feeding America

Emergency Food Resources - Chillicothe and Ross County Public Library

Creating Healthy Communities (CHC) Program – Ross County Health District

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