School administration set up a station near the front doors and baskets in the commons in February for students, staff, and visitors to enjoy fruit or milk that would otherwise end up in the trash. These public shelves save and provide food for others.

Administration saw food going to waste often and came up with the decorated baskets.

“The Ysleta district abides by regulations that require the cafeteria to hand out an entire plate and students can’t choose what they do and don’t want so we decided to make a place for students to leave food that can be saved,” student activities director Chris Lopez said.

The amount of food being thrown away caught the assistant principal’s attention in December and they decided to take action with help from the student council starting in January to make signs and collect baskets for the commons which led to the new sharing station.

“The Director of Child Nutrition Services at YISD, Alan Crawford, visited the school in February and said he liked the idea of the baskets. After his visit he sent the sharing station which wasn’t being used at its previous campus,” Assistant Principal Rosa Gandarilla said.

To make this new system easier for everyone, assistant principals ask students to leave any fruit they won’t be eating in the middle of their table at breakfast or lunch to be collected.

“The first period group of the student council goes to the cafeteria and picks up the fruit. I check everything myself and any damaged fruit is thrown away, the rest is saved,” Gandarilla said.

Once students learned to maintain the station, student council members Juan Robles and Paloma Arreguin were left in charge of tending to it from then on.

“We are required to check the cafeteria for unused food then carry what we can to the front. We throw out anything from the day before and rinse the baskets for safety. After, we replace the ice for the milks and set up the fruit,” Arreguin said.