Jackie Lieske reports at The River Newsroom that in the Hudson Valley, one in 10 adults and one in six children experience hunger, according to Hunger Solutions NY, as just 31 percent of food produced in the Hudson Valley is sold here. In 2014 the group Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley launched its Hudson Valley Farm Fresh Food Initiative, and in 2017, became the first nonprofit to license and customize ChowMatch, an app connecting food donations to food pantries through a network of volunteers. The idea is to divert food that would have gone to waste with those in need. They call their version of the app FeedHV, where farmers can track donations by pallets and bushels and let volunteers go directly to a farm to glean (or harvest excess) produce for donation. The Hudson Valley Agribusiness Development Corporation now runs the app. “FeedHV fits with our holistic approach to food system development and investment in farms,” says Mary Ann Johnson, deputy director of HVADC. “The app provides our farmers with an option to make donations easy and places their food where it’s needed. FeedHV has helped us fulfill our programmatic goals and move closer to our vision of a viable food system.” So far, the app has diverted 378,487 pounds of food from the waste stream to hungry mouths, and prevented 394 metric tons of carbon emissions from food waste and provided 315,706 meals to local families. Read more about this story at The River Newsroom.