Kate Veck works for the LSE Sustainability Team, who recently took a day of paid volunteering leave to visit The Felix Project – a charity that works to redistribute surplus food to schools and other charities. In this blog she reflects on her experience of the day, and what she learnt from helping volunteers with their day-to day tasks.
Ever since starting at LSE in May, I have been keen to explore booking off paid volunteering leave (an opportunity HR offers all full-time staff, subject to line manager sign off). My view has always been that giving back to your community is very important for a healthy society. When we help others, we connect and nurture the qualities of love and compassion and learn more about the world in which we inhabit.
I spoke with my colleagues in a team meeting, and we were all on board with the idea of booking a day during Michaelmas term. Being the Sustainability Team, we thought it would be good if we tried to do volunteering that was linked to sustainability. After some research into what charities/organisations offered one-off volunteering, we landed on The Felix Project – a charity which collects surplus food that would otherwise be wasted from corporations and redistributes to charities and schools so they can provide healthy meals to those who need it.
Dan Reeves, Residences Sustainability Officer: “Volunteering with The Felix Project was great, got me out of the office and into a van delivering much needed quality food to those most in need. An active day with direct positive impact”
Working in Sustainability, we were all acutely aware of how much of an issue food waste presents (1/3 of all food produced is wasted, and accounts for 8-10% of global carbon emissions). Meanwhile, around one in five (21%) adults in London have low or very low food security, equivalent to 1.5 million adults. We wanted to provide a day of support to The Felix Project and learn more about the issue first-hand.
The volunteering was varied and felt impactful – we accompanied van drivers out on runs, dropping surplus food to charities around the Ealing area and collecting empty crates from the previous week’s drops. We also spent several hours in the warehouse, busily sorting and moving deliveries of food into their correct storage areas, ready for drops.
Thea Hamilton, Environmental Manager: “While I wish that organisations like The Felix Project didn’t have to exist, we all thoroughly enjoyed our day volunteering with them! It was great to get away from our desks, meet new people, help the community, and exceed our daily step count. Plus, we were sent home with free food. A win win!”
I was struck by two things during our day at The Felix Project:
- Just how much perfectly edible and high-quality food is donated to The Felix Project. Whilst clearly this shows why charities such as The Felix Project are so important to avoid wastage, I think it really highlights the larger failure of food/supply chain systems. How can so much food end up not being used/sold by the retailers and thus donated to The Felix Project? It seems crazy.
- How logistically smooth the warehouse operations were, thanks to an incredibly hardworking team of staff and volunteers. They can never predict exactly what will arrive as it is fluid every day depending on donations, and so they have to be very agile.
If any LSE staff members are looking at booking a paid volunteering day, we highly recommend seeing what slots are available with The Felix Project. They kept you on your feet and busy, making sure that your time there really did have impact to the operations.
If Kate has inspired you to volunteer, check out one of our other ongoing opportunities or book a one-to-one with David Coles, the Volunteer Centre Manager if you have more questions. And why not follow us on Twitter, and Instagram to stay up-to-date with our events and opportunities and read our blog for more volunteering tips and stories.
