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coordinate, perishable food rescue and delivery coordination serving the greater Omaha area. It took Smith awhile to find funding,


personnel and, most important, refrigerated trucks. Enter Nebraska Trucking Association


President Larry Johnson, who referred Smith to Truck Center Companies (formerly Omaha Truck Center), where she was able, with help from a donor/buyer, to obtain at a discount a used, 2007, 14-foot Isuzu NPR. “And we were on the road,” Smith said.


Smith brings her hard-earned business


principles to the arena of nonprofits, which often struggle to fulfill their good intentions. “I’m a big believer that it’s still a business


and you have to run it like a business,” she said. For example, Saving Grace tries to make it


a practice to match the content of its deliveries to the specific needs of the food recipients — does the nonprofit have refrigeration capabilities or a lot of children — to eliminate further waste on the recipient end. “Tat is real important because a lot of times


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people take the food and then throw it away because they don’t want to say no,” Smith said. Te essence of the operation is the


refrigerated trucks go to the Saving Grace partners and collect excess, nutritious, perishable food and deliver it same day, free of charge. Saving Grace has no warehouses; the trucks pick up the food and deliver it, simple as that. Te items collected include fruits,


vegetables, dairy, bread, meat and packaged meals. Smith stresses the quality of the food, which after all is coming from places like Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, various caterers and Quik Trip, whose 12 area locations provide 750-1,000 excess food items a week. “Tose are really popular,” said Smith, who


noted that items like salmon and steaks are not foreign to Saving Grace shipments. “I never want anyone to think it’s like


dumpster diving,” Smith said. Saving Grace does not pick up any


excess food that has been placed on a table or a serving line and it tries to be proactive, contacting caterers in advance, for example, to see if they are interested in donating and thus eliminating waste on the front end. If a food service entity knows it will be donating excess, it may be more conservative about how much food it leaves in the kitchen versus putting it out to be wasted. Additionally, Saving Grace’s drivers are


required to have a food-handling license. “We want to handle the food as


professionally as they handled it and I think our clients deserve it,” Smith said. “Our drivers also serve as our ambassadors out there.” Smith praised the drivers for being


professional, friendly and punctual and also tipped her cap to Revolution Wraps of Omaha for the wraps they devised for the trucks she called Saving Grace’s “rolling billboards.” “None of this could happen without our


trucks,” Smith said. “Te trucks and our drivers are the heart of our organization.” Te visibility of the trucks addresses


the second goal of Saving Grace, which is to promote awareness and advocacy of food waste and hunger issues both in Omaha and nationally. “We’re kind of starting a movement,” Smith


said. 8 NEBRASKA TRUCKER — ISSUE 6, 2015 — www.nebtrucking.com


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