Everyone has experienced times when their eyes are bigger than their stomachs, but when feeding nearly 300 students three times a day, uneaten food can add up to a lot of waste.

At a recent student assembly, Administration Manager Jim Emerson and Café Supervisor Deb Lane unveiled Café WRAP (Waste Reduction Action Program). Together they demonstrated how much food waste was being generated and translated it into what it would cost each student if they were living on their own.

“We averaged the cost and determined that each student would be throwing out $30 a week,” Mr. Emerson said. “I think that really hit home.”

The goal was set to save 1,000 pounds of food over the next 10 days with a special incentive – a steak and shrimp dinner. The effort was taken on by students – and achieved.

“We saw immediate changes,” Ms. Lane noted. “Students really began to think about what they were putting on their plates.”

Unfortunately, after the initial incentive was reached, the trend started to reverse back toward the higher levels.

“Deb looked into what other schools had done to tackle food waste and came up with new ideas,” Mr. Emerson said. “One thing led to another and she tried weighing students’ individual plates that had excess leftovers at lunch.”

The impact was dramatic and resulted in a reduction of waste at all meals. Overall, food waste was cut about 73% from the original amounts.

Mr. Emerson congratulated the students, and especially thanked Ms. Lane. “Deb’s ‘can-do’ attitude was the difference in accomplishing this huge feat,” he said.