“Harvest” Crew Keeps Rescued Food Flowing

Sister Luisa Villegas stopped at a Peck Street food rescue operation to fill her Toyota up with bags of avocados and several gallons of milk to help make sure that Fair Haven immigrants don’t go hungry — and that excess food doesn’t end up in a landfill.

Sister Villegas, who works for the Blatchley Avenue-based Apostle Immigrant Services, made that food-pickup stop Tuesday morning at the Erector Square headquarters of Haven’s Harvest.

The scene marked just the latest example of the local food-rescue nonprofit’s daily work of ​“feeding our community and reducing food waste, one food rescue at a time.” Founded eight years ago, Haven’s Harvest is still going strong as one of the city’s nonprofits trying to find a more environmentally sustainable and socially responsible way to handle food that might otherwise be thrown in the trash.

Haven’s Harvest co-founder and Executive Director Lori Martin and Director of Operations Lorrice Grant loaded up Sister Villegas’s car with the help of volunteers Tuesday morning to help guide New Haven’s recovered food to communities that will keep it from being wasted. 

On Tuesday, donations from partners like Trader Joe’s, South Norwalk Bakery, and Big Y were dropped off at the Peck Street warehouse space by volunteers. Soon thereafter, that food was picked up by other volunteers who go on food runs to deliver the rescued comestibles to local organizations in need of providing something to eat.

Haven’s Harvest operates out a of 12-by-12 warehouse in the Erector Square ex-factory complex at 269 Peck St. 

The warehouse space is shared with organizations like SWAN and FISH for food and resource storage. 

Haven’s Harvest rescues food and groceries that would typically be tossed from retail stores, universities, event venues and other local organizations, and then movs that food to 240 sites around the city, including local daycares, schools, health and methadone clinics, faith-based organizations, and libraries.

For partners like daycares, Martin said the deliveries can help both to feed families by taking home the food and staff as well as to offer ​“one easier night for parents” who can pick up meal ingredients or pre-made meals. The food provided by the nonprofit is not however served for school cafeteria meals.

Partnerships with senior living centers, Grant said, allow for senior residents on a fixed income and/or with diet restrictions to also get free meals.

Click here to donate to Haven’s Harvest. 

Last year Haven’s Harvest rescued a million and a half pounds of food without getting any food from food banks, Martin said.

“When we keep it in the community, there’s a faster turnaround to get food on someone’s table tonight rather than banking it,” she said.

Over the past seven days, Haven’s Harvest completed 162 food runs.

“We guarantee there’s lots of food that can be shared,” added Grant.

Sister Villegas and volunteer Marta Quinones of Apostle Immigrant Services collected a week’s worth of food to distribute to around 60 clients that the Fair Haven organization provides legal and citizenship services to. 

Sister Villegas also left with several cases of fresh eggs, bread, avocados, and gallons of milk that the nonprofit had received the day before.

“Everybody gets avocados today!” Grant said while packing a fifth case into Villegas’s car. 

After taking several cases of eggs and milk, Villegas cheered, ​“Yes, yes, yes people keep asking for these.” She also picked up from Haven’s Harvest fresh produce like limes, papayas, pears, and plantains.

Two 40-pound boxes of sausages were also loaded into Villegas’s car Tuesday. 

After filling up the car with a dozen boxes of food for immigrant clients at Apostle Immigrant Services, Grant made sure to give Villegas two 20-pound bags of dog food to support furry family friends, too.

Villegas said the food recovered from Haven’s Harvest helps the Apostle Immigrant Services clients and employees to have an emergency food resource. 

“A lot of people have been losing jobs and getting less hours,” Quinones added. ​“It helps a lot.” 

Before departing back to Apostle Immigrant Service’s Blatchley Avenue site, Villegas loaded her car’s back seats with bagged salad, sandwich, and sushi lunches for the organization’s volunteer staff. 

“A lot of people who are helping could use the food too, and we encourage that to remove the stigma around food recovery,” Martin said. 

"Food Is Relational"

Haven’s Harvest has hundreds of volunteers supporting its work through the Food Rescue Hero App.

Martin said a key part of the work of Haven’s Harvest is to build relationships with its partners. ​“It doesn’t just have an environmental impact but a human one too,” she said. 

Haven’s Harvest was co-founded by Martin eight years ago with the understanding that ​“food is relational.”

“Food doesn’t get moved without relationships, you have to trust each other,” Martin added. 

Southern Connecticut State University senior Steven DeFeo (pictured above) began interning at Haven’s Harvest four weeks ago. 

DeFeo, who is a public health major, made a food rescue from the Yale Schwarzman Center Tuesday morning which included chicken salads, baked goods, sandwiches, and spicy salmon sushi rolls. 

In an effort to de-stigmatize the recovery of food, Haven’s Harvest also supports feeding businesses’ staff and their volunteers because ​“we all have mouths.” 

Before heading out Tuesday DeFeo filled a box with food items from the warehouse to feed himself and his family. ​“I don’t work right now and this helps my family to save grocery money,” he said. 

After helping out the crew from Apostle Immigrant Services, Martin and Grant got visits from longtime volunteer and board of directors member Sarah Bromley and three-year volunteer Hannah Larkin-Wells. 

Larkin-Wells delivered a trunk full of Big Y grocery items around Fair Haven. 

Bromley said she began volunteering seven years ago to support Haven’s Harvest in ​“opening doors that are intentionally blocked throughout the country” to basic human needs like food. 

“I don’t have the money to support, but I have the time,” she added. ​“It just shows that we can’t do it without each other.” 

Bethel AME Church member Elaine Henley also stopped by the warehouse Tuesday to pick up and make a food run to the Goffe Street church. 

Martin said her team has met with leaders of the New Haven public school district regarding an interest in recovering unused foods from the district’s 42 schools. 

She often recommends that organizations first offer unused food products to staff and families within the school community before having whatever is remaining recovered from Haven’s Harvest. ​“We only want to move it when it’s excess,” Martin said. 

“Our goal is to get it into hands and mouths that can eat it,” Grant added. 

Martin said Haven’s Harvest is waiting to hear back from school district leaders about partnering to rescue the school’s food waste. 

“We definitely have places to move the food,” Martin said.