The City Harvest Re-Pack was one of my favorite fieldworks but I arrived having no idea what were going to be doing. I knew we were going to a ware house and I knew we were going to a re-pack, but what that actually entailed I was completely clueless about. When we arrive there was already one corporate group there and we were able to go on a tour of the warehouse facility with the group. It is a huge warehouse that holds everything from canned goods to water bottles to fresh produce. Walking through all of us were jaw dropped. We then went back to the office portion of the ware house were we were combined with another corporate group of about 20 people with them we got the official introduction and I finally got my head around what we were there for. We were in City Harvest’s food rescue facility. They collect food that would other wise be thrown out and redistribute it to anti-hunger organizations through-out New York. 40% of all the food in the United States is wasted and thats not just table scraps. When farmers grow food there are often harvests that are too small too big or misshaped. Grocers don’t want to buy this food but its completely edible. City Harvest buys it keep it from being wasted. Food waste not only comes from farmers but also from Grocery stores. For example when a grocery store gets new produce they normally throw out the old produce when it actually is still okay to eat. Like with the farms City Harvest will also collect the food from these grocery stores. After collecting the food from all over the country they have drivers and trucks that bring it back to their ware house in Long Island City. This process may sound extremely expensive and it is to some extent but right now at City Harvest $1 pays for 4 pounds of food. At the warehouse the food it put into gigantic cardboard boxes. Many of the organizations that they bring food to are small and could not take that much food so it needs to be re-packed into smaller bags. That’s were we came in. Together with about 20 or so E-trade employees we repacked apples and grapefruits from huge cardboard boxes into smaller bags that food panties and soup kitchens can take. All together we were told that we repacked about 14,000 pounds of food in a few hours. That’s 14,000 pounds off fresh produce that would otherwise be wasted but instead is going to people that would otherwise be receiving canned or boxed foods.