Helping Our Neighbors and the Environment | Food Link Friday: Sam Kiss, Development and Finance Coordinator
Eager to work in an organization dedicated to helping those who are food insecure, Sam Kiss initially joined the Food Link team in January 2021 as our Development Support Contractor. Now in the role of Development and Finance Coordinator, Sam combines his passions for food, creativity, and fundraising. Whether it’s grant writing or doing the graphic design for Food Link mailings, Sam is able to use his many skills to help alleviate hunger.
In this Food Link Friday installment, Sam discusses his path from soup kitchen volunteer to Food Link staff member. Read on to learn about Sam’s unique school studies in nonprofits and social justice, the intersection of food justice and food waste, and the high rates of food insecurity among the trans population.
While getting your degree from Emerson College, you minored in Peace and Social Justice and Nonprofit Communication. What interests you about nonprofits that led you to pursue these studies?
In college, the classes I took for my Peace and Social Justice minor and Nonprofit Communication minor enriched each other. While I was learning about the nuts and bolts of nonprofit management in my Nonprofit Communication classes, I was also gaining a deeper understanding of structural injustices in my Peace and Social Justice classes. I knew that when I graduated, I wanted to work somewhere dedicated to confronting these issues and helping people.
I like that at Food Link, we aren’t looking at environmental sustainability and food insecurity as if they’re in separate little boxes. We’re looking at how everything connects and we’re creating a food system for our community that serves the people who need it and serves the environment, too.
As Development and Finance Coordinator, you have an inside view of how critical donor support is to Food Link’s reach. How have you seen the support of donors help aid our mission?
I am continually inspired by Food Link’s community of donors, volunteers, and community partners. It is amazing what they have made possible. Every day, I think about how a year ago this building was empty and Food Link was actually receiving more food donation offers than it had the space to accept. Now, the Hub houses Food Link’s operations and office teams, and we are able to feed more people and rescue more food. Thanks to the support of our donors, we nearly doubled our food rescue capacity in 2020 and provided meals for over 80,000 people.
In addition to your daily work tasks, you take an Operations shift once a month, as do all administrative staff at Food Link. How has being involved in hands-on food sorting helped broaden your understanding of food rescue?
I love helping carry in boxes of food we’ve rescued! Rescuing 1.2 million pounds of food annually is a tough number to visualize, and when I’m helping in Operations, it really puts into perspective how valuable Food Link’s work is. Recently, I helped organize boxes of vegetables for transport to a low-income housing development. It was amazing to see how much fresh produce we prevented from needlessly going to waste and directed to people who need it.
Our Spring 2021 newsletter focused on the environmental impact of food waste. You are very passionate about this topic -- how did you first become aware of this issue?
Before joining Food Link, I was aware of food waste on a social impact level. In high school, I volunteered at our local food pantry to sort the rescued food they received for distribution. This experience showed me how many people can be fed thanks to food rescue diverting quality food from going to waste. Working at Food Link has broadened my understanding of the environmental impact of food waste. I knew that food waste harmed the environment because it wasted resources, but I had never considered that food decomposing in the landfill also harms the environment because it produces methane gases. After my first week of work, I went out and bought a compost bin for my apartment!
Food Link’s food rescue and food distribution operations showcase the circularity of food access and environmental work. The food we prevent from going to waste provides people facing hunger the nutritious foods they need. On a broader level, the demographics of people facing food insecurity -- disproportionately people of color, disabled people, people experiencing homelessness, and people existing at the intersection of these identities -- are also the people posed to be the most vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis. I am passionate about Food Link’s vision of a food system without waste, in which everyone has enough, because I appreciate how this vision recognizes intersecting needs in our community and our world.
“Food Link’s food rescue and food distribution operations showcase the circularity of food access and environmental work.”
Throughout this interview, you stress the importance of comprehensively looking at social justice issues. To you, how does food rescue connect to other social injustices?
On a personal level, I think about my own identity as a trans person and the layers of barriers to food access that exist for trans people in Massachusetts. Trans Massachusetts residents experience higher rates of poverty compared to cisgender residents. The disparity is even higher for trans people of color. Nationally, 1 in 5 trans people experience homelessness at some point in their lives.
Food justice is an important piece to so many different conversations – about racial justice, about gender justice, about disability justice, and more – because it is all connected. I like that Food Link enters these conversations by looking holistically at food access and the environment.
Thank you to Sam for sharing his story with us! Click here to get to know other members of team Food Link.
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