Pro Bono Perspectives Podcast Thanksgiving Special! Episode 9: Robert Lee, Rescuing Leftover Cuisine
We are thrilled to welcome Robert Lee, Co-Founder and CEO of Rescuing Leftover Cuisine for a special Thanksgiving week episode. Rescuing Leftover Cuisine is a national nonprofit that targets both the prevention of quality food waste and putting an end to hunger. In the United States alone, 40 percent of food gets tossed every year and on average, 1,160 pounds of food are lost to the garbage pail each year by an American family of four. This amounts to $162 billion in waste annually, which could serve over $58 billion in meals using the national average spent on meals of $2.79.
As a child of Korean immigrant parents who once struggled to provide food security, Robert learned the importance of food waste prevention early on in life. Upon graduation from New York University's Stern School of Business, Robert joined J.P. Morgan, while working part-time on launching Rescuing Leftover Cuisine. He left J.P. Morgan in 2014 to run the organization full time, using seed money he and his co-founder won at a venture competition during their senior year at NYU as well as corporate donations from his former employer.
"Every time I think about the statistics, the pure math of the problem, I always think about that if you take 1/3 of the food that is going to waste and bring it to people who are food insecure, that is enough nutrition to eliminate food insecurity."
Listen to Robert's episode here!
Interested in learning more about Rescuing Leftover Cuisine and how you can support their mission? You can support their GivingTuesday and Holiday Campaign here and check out their volunteer opportunities here.
