Student Spearheads Initiative to Donate Uneaten School Food to Watertown Community Fridge
Third grader Naomi Ward at Lowell Elementary School wants to ensure that no one in the Watertown community goes hungry. Now, bags full of food from lunches at the school are saved and provided to those who visit the Watertown Community Fridge.
Naomi told the Watertown News she was inspired to turn what would have been school food waste into something people in need could eat. “I was seeing all the food that was being taken (from the Watertown Community Fridge), and then I sort of combined them in my head — and thought about how the food was food that the school was already buying. It wouldn’t be making them pay more money,” she said.
Naomi and her mother, Erin, had to navigate several levels of government approval to support her idea of donating her school’s uneaten food to the community fridge. The two presented their plan to the Board of Health, Sen. William N. Brownsberger, and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Erin also spoke with Watertown Director of Health Abbey Myers, the Watertown Public Schools Food Service Department, and Watertown Public Schools Superintendent Dede Galdston about approving the idea and turning a plan into a program, Lowell Food for All.
Now, at every lunch served at Lowell Elementary, students place uneaten items from their lunches in baskets on the table to be donated to the Watertown Community Fridge. The school’s cafeteria staff place the food in a large refrigerator with glass doors in Lowell’s lunchroom where it’s stored until delivery to the community fridge.
Naomi also led a GoFundMe campaign to raise the money needed to purchase the refrigerator. After the first week of implementing the new food program in December 2024, Naomi helped deliver the food to the Watertown Community Fridge.
“We had to carry, like, two full bags of food — two pretty big full bags,” Naomi said. “Actually, my arms are really sore.”
Lowell Assistant Principal Tara Rufo said the school hopes to find parent volunteers to assist with the food deliveries in the future.
