Hello, I am Ioana Man from Aiud, Romania, and this is how our project called in English “Zero Waste” came to be: With the help of Society for Responsible Consumption, I took part in a youth exchange-called “Think global, act Local” organized by Eufemia in Torino, Italy, and it is there I got the idea to of reducing food waste by giving it to the needy. People were talking about “food waste” projects all the time so when I returned to Romania, I met with Diana Calin, from Society for Responsible Consumption and told her about my idea of a “Zero Waste” project in Aiud, my hometown. The first to join our team were Goia Anda and Raluca Popan and the project started in early September. We found three needy families from Aiud and asked them to join us to the market in order to collect wasted food. I was a little skeptical about the farmers’ reaction, but to our surprise, they were happy to help! Some were even relieved and scolded us: “where have you been all this time?!” That first day we collected around 100 kg of cabbage, cauliflower, peppers, tomatoes, aubergines and fruits that would have ended in the bin and instead shared it with the needy families. Two bakeries donated bread and everyone went home happy. The project goes on! Laura Man, Cosmin Georgiu, Casandra Ioan and Andreea Mihailescu are our new volunteers. Together we collected over 800 kg of food and helped over 50 people from Aiud. We aim to connect the farmers and the needy families so that this sharing will work by itself in the future. Another plan is to extend the project to schools and help students understand how easy it is to prevent food waste. Thank you!