Share My Meals Is Feeding Princeton While Supporting Restaurants
PRINCETON, NJ — Princeton resident Isabelle Lambotte created the non-profit public charity Share My Meals as a way to fight food insecurity in the Princeton area. When the coronavirus hit, Lambotte had to adapt and expand to be able to distribute healthy meals to an increased number of families in need.
The charity initially began in January to help to stop food waste by working with big corporations, universities, and schools to take any surplus food from their cafeterias or even catered special events and donate them to those in need.
"I really want people like myself or many others who are not aware that less than a mile from where they live are people who are really struggling," Lambotte said. "It's really something we have to understand."
Re-purposing the reclaimed meals allowed Share My Meals to be completely self sustainable. They were donating about 100 meals a week to 15 families in the Princeton area.
"Hunger and malnutrition is an age old problem, but it shouldn't be when some estimate that 40 percent of the food in the U.S. ends up in a landfill or is left to rot in fields. Food insecurity is unfortunately a problem that many families face even here, in Princeton, despite the fact that Princeton is certainly not a food desert, or a poor city," said Elisabeth Calvarin, a member of Share My Meals.
When the coronavirus quarantine began, Lambotte said they had to expand to donate 300 meals a day due to the increase in number of people who were laid off.
"All of sudden our food supply dried up. Princeton University where we got a lot of food had to close because of COVID," Lambotte said. "Luckily we were contacted by local restaurants… who wanted to cook for us for free using ingredients they still had since they had to close and couldn't sell it."
Those restaurants include The Meeting House, La Mezzaluna, and Trattoria Procaccini.
This opened the door to more possibilities. Share My Meals began raising funds to pay the salary of restaurant employees to cook for the charity. This helped to provide work for employees, who may otherwise be laid off during the quarantine, while also producing food for those in need.
"This is completely different from what we were supposed to do in the beginning. I am glad we are able to address this," Lambotte said of helping restaurant employees.
Since the quarantine, Lambotte estimates Share My Meals has distributed more than 20,000 meals to those in the Princeton area.
"I did not imagine that our little organization would play such an important role when we started back in January. It has been eyeopening to serve the local community during these dire times. I feel very privileged to be part of the Share My Meals movement," Stan Berteloot, a founding member with Lambotte.
With the increase in demand, Lambotte is not sure how much longer they will be able to provide meals everyday due to budgetary reasons. The charity is always looking for donations. For more information on Share My Meals or to donate visit sharemymeals.org.
Currently Share My Meals is hosting a fundraiser to help offer families enrolled in their program with one hamburger family menu for July 4th. To learn more or to donate click here.
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This article originally appeared on the Princeton Patch
