In 2016, MVCC became the first community college in New York State to join the Food Recovery Network, the largest student-driven initiative in the country to end food waste and hunger. In 2019, MVCC partnered with Utica University and SUNY Polytechnic Institute to help them join the Network, too. 

With the help of MVCC dining staff members, student volunteers gather and package still-good leftover food from across campus for one hour on Wednesdays and Fridays throughout each semester which is then picked by two local soup kitchens that offer hot meals to those who otherwise would go hungry.

Since launching this student-driven campaign, MVCC students have collected and distributed more than 1,200 pounds of food to the Salvation Army Soup Kitchen and Mother Marianne’s Westside Kitchen, located at St. Joseph and St. Patrick Church on Columbia Street in Utica.