FIRST Lego League Team 7355, The STEMpunk Minions | Support the Challenge
Mayor Justin Nickels joined a local FLL Team Monday to hear their ideas on reducing food waste in Manitowoc as apart of their most recent challenge.
The "FIRST Lego League Team 7355, The STEMpunk Minions" is an FFL (FIRST Lego League) Team made up of individuals ages 9-14 from the Manitowoc, WI area. FIRST is an organization whose goal is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders and Lego is the brand that we all know and love who also supports innovation for children. Together the two groups offer support for FLL teams nationwide and offer competitions along with challenges to expand childrens skills and ideas for the future.
I spoke with Jesse Huston the lead mentor for the local Team 7355 and was able to get more information on what exactly this group is working towards in our community;
The challenge given to them was to find a way to deal with waste, they chose food waste. More specifically, they chose food waste from small local gardeners as well as hunting and fishing waste. When they looked into the numbers and facts for overall food waste, they found that the numbers were staggering in comparison to other types of waste.
The team is looking for community support in a number of ways:
Number one, they are looking for communication from the community. "They found that if there wasn't an easy outlet to distribute surplus homegrown fruit and vegetables, it was too easy to throw it in the trash or compost. Our goal is to have people communicate via the Facebook page and let others know what they have a surplus of they can then possibly barter with someone else who has a surplus."
Jessie also spoke about another function of the group and goals; "The other function will be as an outlet for donation to churches and pantries. Our hope is to do weekly or as needed pickup of the food from individuals and deliver them to outlets that have expressed a need for the food and have the ability to distribute it to those in need of fresh healthy food. This would obviously require some level of involvement from the community. "
Here at the Clipper City Co-Op we are all about supporting our local community and making a difference in the resources available to all. This group is just one of the many in the area working for similar goals. You can head over to their Facebook page by clicking here.
Give the page a like and let them know that you support their efforts! Remember that if you have food waste, rather than throwing it out, or composting it while still edible, there are many ways to use that food waste for good! Check out their page for more information.
