Meet Will and Skai

It’s a familiar heartbreaking feeling for people in New York City and other big cities in the U.S.

This dynamic duo is doing something about it.

“In late 2021 I got really frustrated seeing people begging for food on the streets and in the subways,” says Will Nzeuton, a senior at Stuyvesant High School in New York City.

Like many of us, Will wanted to help, but didn’t know how. Will said “I wasn’t sure at first what to do, how to help them, especially because their situation was exacerbated by the pandemic and then rising food prices,.” Will says.

But Will, and his brother Skai, did do something. Something, as it turns out, really big.

“We searched around for ideas and knocked on doors,” remembers Skai, “ But we had an answer sitting right in front of us. There was this table in the back of the cafeteria with food for students that were hungry. But a lot of it wasn’t taken…and I saw food was being thrown away at the end of the day. 

“So I figured there had to be some way for me to get that food to the people I saw in the subway and on the street.”

The brothers talked to close friends and started a club to rescue food that was going to waste. 

It started small. But a turning point in their lives, a visit to their family’s homeland, put “a charge” in them, as Skai tells us. Here is their journey:

Will and Skai with members of their food rescue club.

Q: You were two students in one school, wondering how to tackle a huge problem. Today, your club has rescued thousands of pounds of food, spread the idea to schools around the city, appeared on CBS TV News and elsewhere, won a national award for your “Food For All” app, and inspired a new city-wide public school Food rescue program. Whoa! Did you think it was going this far? 

Skai: We didn’t think about that actually. At first I talked to my friends about a club and truthfully I didn't have too much hope for them. Hey, but all of them actually were very on board! I think having that early support, it helped keep us going. 

Will:  A couple of months after starting the club, our family visited Cameroon which is where my Dad is from. 

And there I could see a lot more of the same issues as here. Food insecurity…and that made it much closer to home. I could see people there struggling as it is here. 

I think that motivated and charged me to get rolling fast. That experience, I mean it was my family. 

Q:  That must have been amazing. 

Skai: It was our family that went. I met my Dad's side for the first time. It was over a spring break. 

Q: So what was your first move after that trip?

Skai: That was when I first crossed roads with Grassroots. I think pretty early on …we were still getting around like 80 pounds of food a week.  I sent emails and Grassroots was the organization that responded to me. 

Dan was very proactive in reaching out to us to make sure that we were having any impact and he's the person who pushed us to go onto NBC, CBS.  Just so that we could try to reach more people and new initiatives in more schools.

Will with Ryan Radwan, Vice President of the Food Recovery Club at Stuyvesant. Ryan plays a major role in the club. (Look for a feature on Ryan soon!)..

He's still really helpful with connecting us with people from different schools and organizations who are interested in food security.

Some schools will reach out to him and say they're interested in starting a food security initiative and he'll refer them over to us.

Q: At this point, you two know a lot about the movement against food insecurity. What is different about Grassroots Grocery?

Will: Grassroots welcomes pretty much everyone. I volunteered once at a soup kitchen on the Lower East Side. They are good people. But you had to show proof of address and a lot of other stuff to ensure that you're able to come. But with Grassroots anyone is welcome if they need food. 

Q: I understand that since things are rolling, you two are acting more as leaders. 

Will:  Yes. For one thing, Skai is ahead of me, he’s at Cornell now. So because the club is rolling it’s different.  

There's a lot of younger students that want to help out because they've heard about the club either in middle school or they're involved in similar stuff.

Q:  The power of a movement!

Skai: Yes.

Q: Something a little bit personal. Who is your role model? Who influenced you?

Skai: There's one person: my Dad pushed me a lot especially in the beginning to really get the ball rolling. Because he has been in a situation where he was not living very well in Cameroon. And so it took him a lot of guts and a lot of effort to even come to America and then go to college for us. 

So I think he pushed me a lot because he has been in that situation before and he knows how hopeful any amount of food can be for people. And he was working with you guys. 

Q: How would you encourage someone to get involved against food insecurity? 

Will: A big part of it is that they can start small. Skai started by speaking to the people who work in the cafeteria, who are also really eager to help. Since they're the people who are actually throwing the food away and seeing the problem first hand. 

And then from there, go! It’s pretty simple. We got the attention of people in the Department of Education.  And the principal. Things will take off. 

Skai: So right now they just rolled out an optional program where they trained around 400 cafeteria managers around the entire city. The only thing you need to do is have the principal opt into the program and then the DOE will handle everything on the back end, including setting up a fridge inside your schools, setting up a table. 

Q: So what now, the future? 

Will: I don't really don't know where it goes. We're expanding it to other schools. And Dan's been really helpful with that. And also with the new DOE policy. 

So we have, for example, P.S. 527, an elementary school on the Upper East Side. It's less than a minute walk away from a Grassroots Grocery fridge.

But our mission hasn’t changed. Lots of people in the city live in food deserts and often resort to cheap processed food. So we are keeping focused on fruits, vegetables and dairy products. 

And by doing that, we are helping to make sure that everyone has access to healthy and nutritious meals.

We’ll be using technology more. I'm working on developing an app so that it's a lot easier to connect different organizations. My app last year had a lot of attention.  [Editor: Will’s Food for All app last year won a national award among thousands of other entries.]

And then…after school…I don’t know.  Go national?  Maybe it would be a little tough but that's our great vision.

Grassroots: I have to say, you both show the incredible power of youth leadership. We say: go for it!

Want to join the movement, and make a difference…but don’t know where to start?
Click here to get to everything you need: 
how-to presentations, sample emails to your school, and much more from the Students Food Rescue Taskforce.