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Notre Dame’s 14th annual Back the Bend day of service took place on Saturday, March 29, 2025. Each year, Notre Dame partners with organizations throughout the South Bend community to complete meaningful projects and maintain a flourishing community. According to sophomore Sakura Yamanaka, director of community outreach in Student Government, this year Notre Dame “had over 500 volunteers participate” and the university “partnered with 28 sites across the South Bend and greater Mishawaka area.” Yamanaka mentioned that “by bringing hundreds of volunteers to help, we are able to give these organizations our time and skills, allowing them to continue to make an impact.” This was a record year with the highest number of sites partnered with, including first time partnerships like Cultivate Food Rescue.

During Back the Bend, Cultivate volunteers packed and sealed frozen meals from recovered food to be redistributed to schools. Cultivate works to reduce food waste and hunger in South Bend and surrounding communities by recovering excess and leftover food and redistributing it to schools, food pantries and shelters. The Cultivate facility is located in Elkhart, and initially opened its doors in 2016. Over the past year, Cultivate has worked to expand and update the facility, and the new 22,000 square-foot cold storage facility opened on June 20, 2024. Bryan Horvath, volunteer manager, noted that “the recent renovation to [the] existing building added administrative offices, a boardroom and a volunteer lounge” and that the new building next door is the cold storage facility that “will allow [Cultivate] to rescue 20 million pounds of food per year.”

This year, 16 volunteers served at the Cultivate facility for the Back the Bend shift, and at the end of the shift the team had put together a total of 1,101 meals, “enough to feed 184 kids for an entire weekend” according to Horvath. Brigid Miller decided to sign up for Cultivate Food Rescue because “it seemed like a good opportunity to learn about and contribute to an organization that helps end hunger and food waste in South Bend.” She also shared that “it was cool to learn about the organization’s Backpack Program, which provides meals to children in food-insecure households to fill the gap between school meals provided on Friday and Monday. Food is a basic need, and I think the organization has a really unique way of working with other South Bend organizations to recover excess food and turn this food into healthy meals for children and adults.” Through this day of service, volunteers were able to make a tangible impact and develop a greater understanding of the needs of the surrounding community. Notre Dame will continue to strengthen its relationship with organizations in the South Bend community in order to support local needs.