FOCUS ON: FOOD RESCUE
Bringing it to the table
By Shauna Steigerwald
Shifman, Fernandez and Reiber cook up a food rescue plan that utilizes an app and volunteers willing to go the ‘last-mile’
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t’s an unfortunate paradox that although up to 40 percent of the U.S. food supply is wasted, millions of people throughout the country remain food insecure. But it isn’t always clear how to bridge the gap between the two problems. Locally, there’s now an app – and a new nonprofit – for that. Last Mile Food Rescue uses technology to help keep good food out of landfills and get it to people in need. “There’s a disconnect: There’s so much waste and there’s so much hunger,” said Tom Fernandez. He and Julie Shifman cofounded Last Mile, which launched in November 2020. By midApril of this year, Julie the nonprofit and its Shifman network of more than 200 volunteers (a.k.a. “heroes”) had rescued some 297,000 pounds of food and distributed it to 50-plus area nonprofits, creating more than 248,000 meals. At the same time, they’ve reaped an environmental benefit: The food they’ve kept out of landfills accounts for more than 161,000 pounds of CO2 prevented. Last Mile uses a simple process: Volunteers download the Last Mile Food Rescue app to see available rescues. (Optional notifications can alert users to open rescues). When a volunteer “claims” a rescue, the app directs them to a retailer or distributor to pick up food that won’t be used before it expires. The app then directs the volunteer to a pantry, shelter, or another nonprofit that needs the items. “We’re like the Uber of food rescue,” Fernandez said. With that setup, they don’t need the infrastructure of buildings to store food or trucks to transport it. 18
MAY 2021
Movers & Makers
That makes the model nimble and scalable. Their goal for their first year is to rescue one million pounds of food, “but we’re going to blow past it,” said Shifman, who serves as the nonprofit’s executive director. They hope to meet their stretch goal of 1.5 million pounds of rescued food by their Nov. 17 anniversary this year.
Before they met Kurt Reiber, president and CEO of Freestore Foodbank and now a member of Last Mile’s board of directors, is the matchmaker who brought Fernandez and Shifman together. A Pennsylvania native, Fernandez studied business at Carnegie Mellon. Although his days as a reservist on the school’s tennis team didn’t end in his childhood dream of becoming a professional tennis player, he and his wife both landed jobs at Procter & Gamble after graduation. His 23-year career there, in purchasing within the company’s supply chain operations, was excellent preparation for Last Mile, he said. “The food rescue process is a supply-chain process,” he said. While at P&G, he also got his first taste of nonprofit work. The “proud Asian-American” – he’s of Philipino ancestry – co-founded in 2007 the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers, now a thriving association with 90 corporate sponsors, a $1.5 million budget and host of the largest Asian-American gathering (a career fair) in the U.S. After P&G, the Hyde Park resident and father of two daughters put on his entrepreneurial hat, starting Massage Envy locations in Kenwood and Eastgate.
There’s a disconnect: P T G There’s so much waste and there’s so much hunger. hotos by ina
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Tom Fernandez, Last Mile Food Rescue co-founder
He sold those businesses and joined the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber as senior business advisor of the Minority Business Accelerator. He feels so strongly about that work that he’s staying on even while working on Last Mile, where he’s board chair. “The topic of racial equity is so important at this moment,” he said. Shifman, of Amberley, has had what she calls a “portfolio career.” “To me, that’s what makes my life interesting, that I get to do a lot of different things,” she said. The Cincinnati native, who has four grown sons and one grandson, studied ballet at Indiana University and danced with the Cincinnati Tom Ballet before atFernandez tending law school. She worked with many nonprofits during her 18 years practicing law and eventually formed a nonprofit consulting company. In 2008, she noticed a lot of her empty-nester friends – educated Boomer women who’d been out of the workforce while raising children – were struggling with what to do next and finding a lack of resources to help.
She wrote a book, “Act Three,” as an entry to the speaking circuit, and she launched a coaching company by the same name. For her own next act, she took a job as executive director of Adopt a Class, a local nonprofit that brings mentors into economically challenged schools. “I learned how to run an organization that had enormous amounts of volunteers,” much like Last Mile, she said. Beyond her paid work, she’s had a long history of volunteer involvement with nonprofits ranging from the Talbert House to the YWCA to United Way. That includes more than 30 years on the board of the Cincinnati Ballet, where one of her biggest initiatives was “Cincy in NYC.” The ballet, Cincinnati Symphony and May Festival were all performing in New York City around the same time. Shifman and her committee worked to get other arts groups, plus chefs, involved, culminating in 1,500 Cincinnatians traveling to New York City in May 2014. The project gave her ample experience in fundraising, critical to her work at Last Mile.
