What started off as a normal day for two moms quickly turned into something that changed their lives and careers.

After dropping off their children at soccer practice, Jill Bullard and Maxine Solomon stopped by a fast food restaurant to order a quick lunch.

As the two women waited for their food, they saw one of the workers throwing out many breakfast biscuits –the same being sold just a few hours earlier. Thinking the perfectly wrapped biscuits appeared to have nothing wrong with them, they asked the manager why so much food was being thrown out.

His answer?

“Breakfast is over.”

This happens every day. When one cycle of food – breakfast, lunch or dinner – is over, much of the leftover food is thrown away, regardless of quality, to make room for the next cycle’s food.

The two women convinced the manager to give them the leftover food rather than throwing it away. Piling the biscuits into the back of their station wagon, Bullard and Solomon delivered the food the Shepherd’s Table Soup Kitchen.

Twenty-two years later, they’re still doing it.

Emily Zartman , volunteer coordinator for the Interfaith Food Shuttle – the company Bullard and Solomon founded after that incident, said the shuttle has grown exponentially since its inception.

“The first year they started the shuttle, they moved about 600 pounds of food just in Jill [Bullard]’s station wagon. Since, we have grown tremendously. When I started as a volunteer, we had maybe 30 or 40 volunteers, and there were three of us on the staff,” Zartman said. “In 2010, we had 2,617 volunteers who put in 43,383 hours of work, saving us $904, 535.55.”

According to Zartman , the Food Shuttle now operates many different programs, and the Food Rescue program remains one of their largest.

“We have the Food Rescue program, where we use volunteers as drivers and drivers’ assistants. They go from here to restaurants, caterers, big box stores and supermarkets,” Zartman said. “They pick up the food that is going to be discarded – and it can be perfectly good food, maybe it’s about to out-date or just did, or maybe they bought too much of it and they can’t sell it – then they deliver that food to recipient agencies.”

Zartman said the Shuttle makes a point to donate to organizations rather than individuals, in an effort to be sure as many people can benefit from the programs as possible.

“We do not, per se, give to individuals,” Zartman said. “We give to over 200 agencies who serve hungry people. In most cases, more than half of what they pick up does not come back here [to the Food Shuttle]. It goes directly to the agencies so that the food is as fresh as they could possibly get it.”

Zartman also said a great deal of the food donated to agencies comes from a program called “field gleaning.”

 ”After the farmer has harvested his crop, there’s always a good amount of product that is still there that they can’t use,” Zartman said. “It’s either too small or too large or slightly marred, and volunteers pick it up and ‘glean’ it – clean it up a bit – and it also goes out to agencies.”

According to Zartman , it’s also possible for volunteers to help without leaving their own backyards. Through a program called “Plant a Row for the Hungry,” volunteers plant an extra row of food in their gardens to donate to the Food Shuttle.

However, the Food Shuttle does not only rely on donations from others. It grows its own food on their suburban farm, a program that relies heavily on volunteers.

“We have six acres of land right here in the city. We plant extensive gardens there so we can offer our recipient agencies fresh, local products. Volunteers do virtually everything there. They mulch, they weed, they sew–whatever needs to be done.”

Zartman , a former teacher, also said the shuttle operates a program called Cooking Matters, where teenagers, children and families are taught how to shop and cook and eat healthfully on a low budget. Volunteers for this program assist with preparation and operation of the classes, although qualified volunteers –chefs or nutritionists – also teach the courses.

The shuttle also operates a program called Backpack Buddies, which helps provide students with food when school systems cannot.

“There are kids who receive free or reduced price lunch in school, and some of them are going home Friday afternoon to a house with little or no food. I can’t imagine eating nothing over the weekend,” Zartman said. “We send home with some of these kids – over 1,200 a week – backpacks, generic backpacks so there is no stigma attached to taking one home, with six kid friendly single serve meals. They use it over the weekend, they return the backpacks on Monday, and we send them out again at the end of the school week for the whole school year.”

This spirit of giving has caught on in the community, and the Rev. Diane Faires , associate minister of St. Paul’s Christian Church, leads a youth group who routinely incorporates volunteering with organizations like the Food Shuttle into their own programs.

According to Zed Whitehurst , a junior at Barton College and one of the oldest participants in the youth group, St. Paul’s organizes a lock-in multiple times a year. At lock-ins, group members spend the night in the church and learn about a different social issue and volunteer the next day with an organization related to that issue.

 ”Along with the overnight stay, there is usually an educational part where we try to find a volunteer event,” Whitehurst said. “The games, fellowship…lack of sleep because the girls are talking, make it fun. But, we’re also trying to demonstrate what the youth have learned and hopefully help out elsewhere.”

For Zachary Jones, a 13-year-old N.C . State fan and group member, volunteering with the food shuttle allowed him to put himself in the shoes of a food-insecure family.

“I like that we’re helping others,” Brady said. “If I were needy, I’d like it if someone helped me.”

Zartman said this is the biggest motivating factor for volunteers.

“It looks great on your resume when you’ve done volunteering for any amount of time. You’re also giving back to the community – that’s the biggest thing,” Zartman said. “Most of the people who come here are doing it because they feel like they have been privileged and want to be able to help other people get out of the rut they might be in.”

But according to Zartman , there is still a lot of work to do.

“I’m sure we’ll keep expanding. We have to keep expanding. There are more people becoming hungry every day. It’s a real problem,” Zartman said. “In 2010, we rescued 6.5 million pounds of food. But that’s just a drop in the bucket compared to what’s going in our landfills. Good food doesn’t belong in our landfills.”