History and Mission
RFH began as a project of the University District Rotary Club (Seattle) in 1982 – the brainchild of a banker named Norm Hillis. Norm and his fellow Rotarians helped to gather produce from local gardens for distribution through programs that were run out of church basements.
The effort grew when Mike Shanahan, then Chief of Police at the University of Washington and new member of the University Rotary sent an “APB” to law enforcement officials across Washington. Within days, Mike heard from the Sheriff in Othello, WA who knew of 30,000 pounds of onions that were available and instructed Mike and the group to …”come and get ‘em”. Rotarians reached out to their community contacts and found a construction company that was bringing an empty truck back from the Othello area. Within a day, a new model for food recovery was born, and RFH was on its way to collecting more than 160 million pounds of produce for hungry families and individuals.
Today, RFH’s mission is to:
- Feed the hungry with surplus nutritious food
- Access and improve food distribution and transportation systems
- Develop innovative hunger relief solutions
- Replicate the concept of RFH.
