Welcome Will!

My wife and I recently moved to Boston from Minneapolis after she got accepted into Harvard Business School. I was looking to continue my work in hunger relief and Lovin’ Spoonfuls was one of the premier organization in the Boston area in that regard.

Tell us about your background! How did you become interested in food rescue?
I worked in operations for a number of years but always had an interest in a more service-oriented role. If you look at where operations and service intersect, you will find a food bank and fortunately for me I was able to work at Second Harvest Heartland, one of the country’s top food banks, for a few years. While there I volunteered with a number of other hunger relief organizations to broaden my knowledge and experience and I eventually went to work for one, ICA Food Shelf, a pantry that distributes over 1.5 million pounds of food annually. It was there I took over the food rescue operation for a couple years.

What passions do you bring to the job?
I am very passionate about serving others. I feel like I have the opportunity to make things a little better for other people and I’m willing to work hard and work collaboratively to make that happen.

Have there been any surprises for you in the food you rescue?
The biggest surprise to me has been the variety and quality of the food we rescue. Yes, more often than not, it’s food that stores don’t believe they can sell. But it’s still good, nutritious food that can and should find a home if the system is in place to get it to that home. With the work Lovin’ Spoonfuls and our partners do, we collectively find a lot of good homes for a lot of good food.

Do your friends and family consider you a good cook? Any signature recipes?
They should probably not consider me a good cook but they are too Minnesotan to tell me that. Instead they would probably call me an…interesting cook.

What would we find in your refrigerator right now?
Enough fruit to feed a small elephant.

What’s your favorite childhood food memory?
Every year my grandparents would host our Christmas get together and my grandfather would make his beef stroganoff. Christmas has never felt the same since he passed.

Who are your heroes?

My grandfather piloted a bomber in World War II and then settled down after the war and married an incredible woman and raised a family. When his wife passed away late in life, he married another incredible woman. He was a fixture at the local minor league baseball park and even took his 10-year-old grandson on his first road trip following that team around the midwest. He was the glue that held our family together and I will be lucky to be half the man he was.