This Columbus high schooler’s project with local restaurants helps people who need it most

When Brookstone High School senior Ayomide Oloyede saw five pounds of pork headed to the trash can while working at a local restaurant, he knew he couldn’t let it go to waste.

He took it home and picked up the phone. The next day, about 30 plates of food were given to people experiencing hunger in Columbus.

Oloyede decided to continue “rescuing” unused food from his workplace, Zombie Pig BBQ by partnering with Apostle Pamela Burke at Gifts of God Ministry to create “Project Lunchtime.” It’s one of several grassroots initiatives that have popped up to help meet the sharp increase in food insecurity in the Chattahoochee Valley since the onset of the pandemic.

The initiative connects local restaurants that have unused food with those in need. Volunteers pick up the food, package it into plates and distribute full meals to the hungry. Oloyede estimates that over 500 pounds of food have been rescued since July through Project Lunchtime.

“It kind of started off as, I didn’t want there to be wasted Zombie Pig (food) but eventually I was just like, well, there’s probably a lot of wasted food at a lot of places,” Oloyede said. “There’s no way you can prevent all the food waste but if you can just get a few local restaurants, and get them to repurpose their food, then you can impact a lot of lives.”

Restaurant partners

Since Oloyede started the project in early July, two more restaurants have signed on — La Nacional Mexican Buffet and Ezell’s Catfish.

La Nacional generates more leftover food than a traditional restaurant because of its buffet. But it hadn’t been involved in a food recovery initiative until Oloyede approached co-owner Sherry Buenrostro and pitched his project. Now, La Nacional’s leftover food is being recovered regularly for the first time by Project Lunchtime — food that would otherwise be going to waste.

“I hope more people get on board to help. I tear up just the pictures he sends me when they get to go out and help the community,” Buenrostro said. “As a mom, I just think about these young kids going about and doing these amazing things and that’s what we want for our kids when they get older.”

Project Lunchtime distributes donated food from the three restaurants at a variety of locations in the Columbus area, with the intent to connect the food to primarily lower-income or homeless residents.

“The homeless are a forgotten group. I see the homeless all over Columbus and for a high school kid to want to help out the homeless I thought was very admirable,” said Zombie Pig BBQ co-owner Brad Beasley. “We always give food to the food bank but this seemed like another good way to help.”

How to take part

The project’s ability to rescue perishable food is rare — it can be tough to gather and refrigerate perishable food quickly enough for it to be food-safe. Oloyede and the Gift’s of God Ministry team immediately refrigerate donated food to keep it viable until they’re able to distribute it the following day. Volunteers also wear face masks and gloves and routinely sanitize equipment to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Restaurants who donate food to a nonprofit are protected from potential liability under Good Samaritans laws, Oloyede said, because the project is classified as an outreach arm of Gifts of God Ministry, a non-profit.

Informing restaurants of this protection helped ease liability concerns and ultimately helped convince restaurants to participate, he said. Those interested in donating food or otherwise participating in Project Lunchtime can reach Oloyede via email at Aoloyede2003@gmail.com.

Oloyede says his parents inspire him to give back to the community.

“They’ve always instilled in me that you have to help people, you have to make sure that people can enjoy some of the privileges that you enjoy,” Oloyede said. “Food security is a thing that a lot of people take for granted.”

This story was originally published September 23, 2020 at 6:30 AM.