Waste not want not

Watching good food go to waste sent Ronni Kahn on a mission. Now more than half a million meals have been served to the hungry in Sydney alone.

Running a successful business while being a wife and mother of two sons would be enough for most of us, but not for Ronni Kahn. A sense of obligation to repay her good fortune in life combined with a deepening disgust for the waste she witnessed on a daily basis led her around the globe on a mission to set up OzHarvest.

“I was restless to do something,” explains Ronni. “I felt so privileged. I work hard, bloody hard, and that feels good. I have two healthy sons I adore, a business that I made work, and a wonderful husband, but I just felt like I needed to do more.” When she says, “do more”, what Ronni really means is ‘give more’, and in her quest to make a difference in some way, she decided to set up a charity that personifies the saying ‘think global, act local’.

Ronni’s business, Ronni Kahn Event Designs is, as its name suggests, a business that revolves around the planning and execution of functions and events and, of course, the provision of vast quantities of food. “My mother always said, ‘Clear your plate; somewhere someone is wasting away’, so I’ve always been conscious of the need to treat food as a precious resource. What people forget is that the hungry don’t just live ‘over there’ – they live in the same place we do.” Ronni’s awareness of the reality of hunger and homelessness was compounded by the casual waste she witnessed. “Through doing events I’d seen so much good food being wasted that, in the end, it just disgusted me. Whenever I could I’d stop on the way home and drop the food off to places like Matthew Talbot [a Sydney hostel for homeless men run by the St Vincent de Paul Society], but regulations and logistics made it increasingly hard to pull off. I felt genuinely outraged by what was happening, but powerless to do anything about it.”

It could have ended right there, with resignation and disgust, but two events conspired to push Ronni down the path to a solution. “In 2004 I spent a couple of days in my home town Johannesburg and I visited with an old friend, Selma Browde.” (Ronni was born in South Africa and made her circuitous way to Australia via 12 years on a kibbutz in Israel.) “Selma is an inspiration,” continues Ronni. “There will be books written about her one day. She’s a doctor and at the age of eighty she’s still a crusader.” Selma has dedicated much of her life to making a difference and it was a reminder of this that urged Ronni not to give up. “On the second day she took me to Soweto to visit an HIV clinic she had set up there. As we were driving along I was talking through my frustration and she said, ‘Just remember, there’s electricity in this township because of what I did’, and I thought, ‘I cannot live another day without making a difference’.”

Ronni’s passion might have remained thwarted were it not for her next trip overseas. “Not long afterwards I was getting ready to visit my sister Margie in LA and I was doing my usual research.” Ronni is a member of ISES (International Special Events Society) and uses its network to organise contact and exchange when she travels. “I looked on the website to check out what was happening in LA and stumbled across the name Angel Harvest. I clicked on the link and there it was, my epiphany.”

Angel Harvest is the LA branch of America Harvest, a charity founded by American Helen verDuin Palit. “The site just said: ‘We collect food from restaurants and take it to the hungry.’ There it was, my mission, and someone was actually doing it.” Direct as ever, Ronni tried without success to contact Helen right up until the day she flew. “I rang my sister on the way to the airport and said, ‘You have to find this woman because I need to meet her’. When I got off the plane the first thing I said was, ‘Did you find her?’ and Margie handed me a mobile number.”

Ronni called Helen straight away and threw all of her pent-up passion and determination into setting up a meeting. “I must have done something right, because she offered to come to my sister’s house the next day,” remembers Ronni. “I was so excited about the meeting and dressed right up – a smart dress and my favourite Terry Biviano heels.” Ronni’s sister was horrified at her outfit. “She said: ‘This is LA! Helen will be in a kaftan and beads; what are you thinking?’ Well, I was thinking that she wouldn’t be the kind of woman who would judge me on my appearance so I’d dressed for myself.”

Sure enough, Helen arrived at the meeting kitted out in kaftan and beads, but their differing sartorial styles didn’t hamper the connection between the two women. “Helen stayed for five hours and we just talked constantly. She agreed to take me through the set-up of America Harvest over the next few days and when she left turned around and said, ‘I have never seen such amazing shoes’. Talk about bonding!” Ronni spent five days shadowing Helen and learning everything she could about the operation. “When it was time to leave, Helen said, ‘Right, now you have three choices: you can go back to Sydney and do nothing, you can go back and reinvent the wheel, or you can take my program with you’. Of course, Helen gave me all the information and details I needed to set up OzHarvest on my return.”

Ronni boarded her homeward flight lugging four files of photocopies and read them all before landing. “I was so inspired, I thought I’d be up and running within two weeks!” It took a little longer, but only a little. Ronni began by approaching her law firm, Henry Davis York, to help with the set-up. “I basically said, ‘I have no money, but this has to happen, so you’ve got to do it pro bono’, and they did. Once the ball was rolling, things just started to happen.”

The first major barrier was a legal one. There are many charities that feed the homeless but regulations governing food and hygiene meant that they were restricted to canned and dry goods. Changing the regulations to allow the distribution of fresh food was vital if the project was to go ahead. St James Uniting Church and a group of pro bono lawyers (including Ronni’s) led a campaign to change the law, which was ultimately successful.

Once the legal path was clear, Ronni approached Julie White, manager of the Macquarie Bank Foundation (the philanthropic arm of Macquarie Bank). “They came on board straight away,” says Ronni. “Julie says she was bowled over by the idea, but I think she also realised that I wasn’t going to go away until she did!” With initial funding in place, Ronni quickly applied her substantial organisational skills and experience to getting the charity off the ground. “Macquarie Goodman donated office space and two vans and we were up and running,” she says.

OzHarvest has two full-time office staff and one part-timer, but is otherwise staffed by volunteers. Ronni is the founder, and front-woman, yet still takes her turn behind the wheel if need be. “Everyone I approach thinks it’s a great idea,” says Ronni, “but the trick is turning a great idea into a functional reality. What makes OzHarvest work is that we’ve made it completely hassle free. The stumbling block before we came along wasn’t just the law, it was about logistics. Restaurants, delis and caterers operate on tight margins – time and money – and it’s so much easier for a company to throw their wasted food away. What we do is say, ‘There’s no extra work involved for you; all you have to do is give us a call and we take care of the rest’.”

OzHarvest is a non-sectarian, non-denominational charity that is committed to delivering to any agency in need. “They have to pass our criteria,” says Ronni, “in order for us to operate within the guidelines of the law.” Those criteria are not onerous – they must simply be charities that feed the homeless and possess the proper facilities to do so. “The first thing we did was try to find out how many agencies there were,” Ronni explains, “but we couldn’t find anybody in government, from the council level up to the federal, who kept track, so we created our own database.”

In the 14 months it’s been up and running, OzHarvest has served over half a million meals to the homeless and hungry in Sydney alone. Astonishing as that figure may be, it’s only the beginning of the effect the charity has had. “The knock-on effect is huge,” says Ronni. “I wanted to feed people, but I didn’t realise what it would mean. OzHarvest has saved 129,073 kilograms of food that was destined to be landfill. By donating food to the agencies in such a regular and efficient way, they’ve been able to divert their resources to other areas,” Ronni pauses. “This is fresh food, real food, so the quality of nutrition is enormously different to what the agencies were able to provide, no matter how inventive they were. It leads to self-sufficiency; some of them have started to teach their clients to prep and cook. Oh, and the taste factor; this is great food – even the bread is amazing.”

“You know, what I did was actually quite simple,” says Ronni. “I looked at my skills – hospitality and networking – and worked out how to use them for something good.” Ronni is clearly proud, but her pride is invested in OzHarvest rather than herself. If anything, what she seems to feel the most is grateful. “No money I’ve ever earned has meant as much as this experience. You couldn’t pay me enough to walk away and I don’t believe anyone would let it die. Just to do this is a privilege. The only experience that has equalled this feeling is bringing up my children.”

While she is delighted with the success of OzHarvest in Sydney, Ronni’s great passion now is to find a way to take the charity to a national level. “OzHarvest has been more successful than I dared to hope. We’ve had so many amazing people volunteer that we’re working on building a proper volunteer program to extend and develop what they can do and what we can offer.” Ronni has also been highly successful at attracting enough funding to keep the charity running well, though she’s quick to point out that more is always needed. “It’s not just that I want this to be a national charity,” she says, “it’s more that it should be. I want us to be able to match excess food to hungry people wherever the need lies. I’m looking for a national sponsor, for people to open branches in other cities. I’m determined to have opened in at least one other city by the end of this year.”

With that, Ronni is off, moving at speed again. It’s time to go back to her day job before meeting her husband for dinner. There is nothing earnest or worthy about Ronni Kahn; this is a woman who genuinely enjoys the finer things in life. There is also nothing shallow about Ronni. One of her great strengths is a combination of depth and glamour – the ability to change the world while kitted out in very high heels.

Get involved
If you’re interested in donating to or being involved in OzHarvest, check out its website, www.ozharvest.org. If you are interested in being involved in plans to expand the charity to other Australian cities and New Zealand, contact Lynda Dave, operations manager for OzHarvest, on (02) 9516 3877 or by emailing info@ozharvest.org.

Words: Francesca Newby. Photography: Andrew Lehmann. Hair & make-up: David Novak-Piper.