LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — More than a quarter-million valley residents do not have access to sufficient food. But a newly launched program looks to change that by providing extra food that comes straight from the Las Vegas Strip.
Anchor Tricia Kean paid a visit to the Venetian for a firsthand look at how this program works.
"It really is streamlining food rescue," said Anna Schmid, vice president of communications for the Venetian.
The Venetian Las Vegas launched a new program called the Food Rescue Alliance back in September.
Channel 13 was recently given exclusive access to see how it works.
"So when a meal time is complete here at the Venetian Expo Center, the temperature-controlled boxes will just be stored in a staging location," Schmid said.
Excess food left from a convention is loaded into the boxes and brought to a loading area, where it's rolled onto a special delivery truck for donation.
"So all the food that's donated, is it cooked right here? This is from the executive chefs and world class food," Kean said.
"Absolutely. It's prepared right here by the Venetian culinary team," Schmid said.
Instead of throwing this extra food away, the Venetian partnered with the nonprofit organization The Just One Project to get this food to those in need.
"This program will allow us to rescue anywhere between 10 to 20,000 meals a month," Schmid said.
"So, what is the feedback you get from the community?" Kean asked.
"So far it's been fantastic and we recently, the program got White House recognition," Schmid said.
The Venetian said none of this would be possible without their key partnership.
"There's access to food. It was logistics and infrastructure that we really needed to get that directly out to the community and that's why The Just One Project became the perfect partner," Schmid said.
"There is so much food on the Las Vegas Strip that could really be used for good use," said Brooke Neubauer, founder and CEO of The Just One Project.
The Just One Project is the organization picking up this donated food.
"This food right now is going to get wrapped up, packaged and it will be at another organization within the next few hours," Neubauer said.
Volunteers separate the food into family-size servings to be donated to several community partners and those receiving assistance from The Just One Project.
"We just had an amazing family that just shared feedback that said that this provided three dinners for their entire family," Neubauer said. "Since September, this has provided food for over 66,000 people. We're talking about full meals."
This is just the beginning. The Just One Project said the goal is to save food prepared across the valley.
"We're super excited to invite everybody to be part of The Food Rescue Alliance," Neubauer said. "Whether you're on the Strip, whether you have a restaurant down the street. Everybody has some part to play in this food insecurity issue that our city is facing."
