"Eat your food. There are children in China going hungry!" Does this scenario sound familiar to you? It does to me. My father always said children were starving in China when I didn't want to eat my liver and onions with beets and mashed potatoes.

My reply was always the same. "Where is a box? I will help you send it." My father's response was to shake his head and make me sit at the table until my plate was empty.

At that time in my life, I was very grateful for the many dogs we had who really enjoyed eating liver and onions. Now as I have gotten older, I appreciate what my parents were trying to instill in me and my siblings. Wasting food truly is preventable.

Ben Simon has a passion for preventing hunger and food waste. He founded the Food Recovery Network, whose mission is to "unite students at colleges and universities to recover surplus perishable food from their campuses and surrounding communities that would otherwise go to waste and donate it to people in need."

Currently, more than 90 colleges are participating in the program and they have already recovered 340,000 pounds of food.

Everyone in the community can have a part in feeding others. Look for the Food Recovery Certified emblem in restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, hospitals, caterers, farms, and farmers markets that give their surplus to local nonprofits serving hungry Americans.

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