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PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF FEEDBHM
Rescuing Food & Families FeedBHM volunteers partner with local establishments to reduce food waste
BY STEPHANIE GIBSON LEPORE Grace Klein Community (GKC) is a 12-year-old nonprofit based in Hoover, and the organization has long rescued food from local restaurants and grocers, instead delivering it to families across Birmingham and the state. However, notes Rachel Petry, FeedBHM Junior Board Sponsor, “The volume and need for food dramatically increased during Covid in early 2020, and that is where the FeedBHM program was born.” FeedBHM is the Food Rescue program of GKC. According to their website, “GKC is now in its 12th year of providing support through food rescue, repurposing and sharing to support 28 Bham Family January 2022
food-insecure families in the Birmingham area. In 2020, we rescued over $2 million worth of food donations. This rescued food would have been taken to landfills, but we are able to put that food in the hands of families in our community who need food assistance.” GKC notes that, in 2021, food insecurity still impacts more than three million people in the state—that’s 71% of the adult population and 29% of the child population, meaning one in five children faces hunger. The FeedBHM program was launched to help GKC strategically focus on food rescue CONTINUED ON PAGE 29
