Without such help, “sometimes it’s easier to throw food away,” Ms. Kulshreshtha says. She notes that restaurants are busy places and the owners and managers may not know where to take their extra food. “We want to make it just as easy to donate that food,” no matter the time of day or night. “We have deliveries around the clock.” The Food Connect app makes sure the donated food goes where it is needed most, instead of showing up at a food pantry or shelter that may already have too many donations or lack space to store extra food. Ms. Kulshreshtha says that Food Connect dis- tributes the equivalent of about 3,000 meals a week and works closely with other hunger-relief organizations. “We can make a big dent in scary statistics when we are working together,” Ms. Kulshreshtha says. Each year, about 22 percent of Philadelphians are “food insecure,” which means they don’t consistently know where their next meal is coming from. Many of them are children. Restaurants and other food vendors help such people when they donate their extra food through Food Connect, but they also benefit themselves because they can take a tax write-off for the donations. They have less trash to haul away as well. “Not only do we get to feed people … we are reducing the amount going to landfill, reducing waste,” Ms. Kulshreshtha says. “There are a lot of environmental benefits to doing the right thing.” — By Jordan Chhay, Hannah Fisher, Brandon Purdy, Maggie Sgaramella, and Lilyana Watchous East Norriton Bulldog Bulletin 15 Illustration by Stella Menzies, eighth grade, East Norriton Bulldog Bulletin