Sustaining lives and the environment
The Franciscan Outreach helps those in need by providing various services, including serving three meals every day to its guests and providing meals to community members who don’t have enough to eat.
Contributing to help fight hunger is civil, materials, and environmental engineering student Lydia Vulich, who is a member of Food Recovery Network (FRN) at UIC.
The FRN is a national organization that empowers college students to connect with food suppliers, farmers, and local businesses across the U.S. in the fight against climate change and hunger by recovering surplus food from across the supply chain and donating it to local nonprofit organizations.
At UIC, students like Vulich drive GEMMA, an electric vehicle purchased using the Sustainability Fund, to the UI Health Cafeteria, UIC Student Center East Cafeteria, Rush Panera, and the Rush Central Kitchen to collect food that would otherwise be thrown out. Then, they deliver it to Franciscan Outreach, which helps feed food insecure community members.
“When I started, there were pickups maybe twice a week,” Vulich said. “We’ve built up now to every day of the week, and we pick up food from multiple locations. I used to do food recoveries two or three times a week myself, but now that we have a bigger volunteer pool with multiple drivers, I do it once a week.”
In addition to picking up food, Vulich manages the volunteer schedule and coordinates with food donors and the partner organization where the food is delivered. She also tracks the amount of food collected.
“From the beginning of the fall semester last year through the summer, we recovered more than 51,000 pounds of food,” she said.
Preventing food waste has been a big part of Vulich’s life. Her mother volunteers at a food pantry in LaGrange, Illinois, and her older sister was a Food Recovery Network member when she was in college. When Vulich came to UIC, she checked to see if there was an FRN chapter and jumped at the opportunity to join. In addition to helping, she sees a correlation between her volunteer work and engineering.
“I’m interested in the environmental side of engineering and preserving the natural and the built environment,” said Vulich, who worked in the Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering Lab under the direction of Professor Krishna Reddy during her junior year. “Waste management is really interesting to me and reducing food waste plays into the waste management side of civil engineering.”
In addition, she likes the idea of driving an electric vehicle and working with other engineers to make sure the vehicle is running properly.
“I like to tell people if they have a driver’s license, they get to drive the electric vehicle. It’s fun, and people love to see it on the street. It’s kind of like a golf kart, but it’s a utility car,” she said. “It is powered by a solar charging station, which allows us to work with Engineers for a Sustainable World to keep it working.”
While there are many aspects of FRN that play into civil engineering, Vulich sees the social component as the most rewarding part of being part of the organization.
“When I walk into the kitchens, I always say ‘Hi.’ It makes me smile, and it makes them smile,” she said. “The shelter guests are always just super appreciative, too. It’s just nice to see exactly how your work is making an impact.”