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Donating Food, Not Dumping It:
Changing laws so surplus food can be given to the hungry
Picture a few
food industry workers hanging out at 3:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and you
probably don't envision the kind of conversation Guido Pozzebon, Francisco
Valles, and Claire Nikakas had a few years ago. One night after their Landmark
Advanced Course, Pozzebon says, the three stayed up late “talking about all the
wasted food in our industry and how it could be given to the needy and
underprivileged of Melbourne.”
Pozzebon, Valles, and Nikakas banded together after that night to form One
Umbrella, an organization dedicated to ending hunger in Australia by rescuing
potentially wasted food. In order to jumpstart the organization, Pozzebon set
about getting a Good Samaritan law passed through the Victorian State Parliament
that would allow people and organizations to donate surplus food stocks and
supplies.
“The law previously did not protect the
donor,” Pozzebon explains. “People were open to legal liability and as such they
would not donate good food but instead they dumped it.”
The law was officially passed last October,
and other states in Australia are now in the process of passing their own Good
Samaritan laws. To date, One Umbrella has helped feed more than 200,000
disadvantaged people with food that would have gone to a landfill if not for its
efforts.
“Through Landmark, I've realized that I am
a leader, that I can produce results, and that it's a privilege to make a
difference in the quality of life for others,” Pozzebon says.
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