Good News: College Students Link Farmers To Food Banks To Combat Hunger and Waste Amid Coronavirus

FarmLink, a grassroots movement started by U.S. college students, works to link farmers, who have been forced to waste food amid the coronavirus pandemic, to food banks across the nation.

“While food banks are facing an unprecedented increase in demand, millions of pounds of produce are being dumped or wasted as commercial farms around the country struggle to adapt to cancelled orders,” their website states. “Our project connects such farms with under-stocked and understaffed food banks.”

FarmLink also promises that all donations towards their cause will be used to pay the wages of truck drivers and farmworkers.

Anyone can volunteer to help or donate on the FarmLink website. One can also register as a farmer, someone who works in transportation, or as a “food bank.”

The group has delivered roughly 240,000 pounds of food from farms to food banks, and has paid more than 4,500 wages.

“We called a farmer … and he agreed to donate 50,000 pounds of onions. We lined up shipping and delivered food to our local food bank. The next day, we did the same thing with 10,000 eggs. And, after we did these two shipments, we realized we could make a difference,” FarmLink founder Max Goldman told CBS.

FarmLink has now moved food in Idaho, Oregon, Utah, California, North Carolina, and Virginia and plans to take its efforts to Texas, Wyoming, New York, Michigan and the New England area, according to NowThis News.

With the deluge of headlines blaring the latest crisis sparked by the spread of the coronavirus, Mediaite has decided to dedicate at least one story per day to good news coming in from around the world.