Apollin Lu is only 17, but she is already leading a growing youth network that is helping tackle food waste across British Columbia.
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that → lead → Columbia
She founded the Food Recovery Alliance, which has mobilised more than 140 young volunteers who have saved 9,000 pounds of fresh produce from going to waste.
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who → found → waste
Together, they collected surplus produce from local farms and redistributed it to shelters and community organisations.
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they → collect → shelters
Lu was recognised with the 2026 Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes for her efforts to reduce food waste and help people in need.
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Lu → recognise → need
She saw food waste up close
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She → see → waste
Apollin Lu grew up on her family’s garlic farm.
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Lu → grow → farm
She watched her father work the soil for a decade.
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father → watch → decade
Her neighbours also had farms, and she noticed a pattern.
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she → have → pattern
Lots of this fresh produce ended up going to waste.
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Lots → end → waste
Farmers weren’t discarding vegetables out of negligence.
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Farmers → discard → negligence
They were managing supply chains that didn’t always align with demand.
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that → manage → demand
She started asking herself: why is good food going to waste while people in the community are starving?
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people → start → community
By the time she got into ninth grade, she knew she had to do something.
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she → get → something
So she formed the Food Recovery Alliance to address that discrepancy.
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she → form → discrepancy
The work began quietly.
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work → begin → ?
Lu spent two years doing exactly what most non-profit founders do at the start: cold-calling farmers, building trust with storefront managers and convincing her peers that weekend farm work sounded fun.
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work → spend → peers
Eventually, the farmers joined her programme.
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farmers → join → programme
By now, her team had built an invoicing app so that farmers receive a tax receipt the moment food is donated.
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food → build → receipt
Along with her volunteers, she also put together a community garden where younger students grow fresh produce and donate it, while also learning sustainable farming.
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students → put → farming
By the time the organisation was formally incorporated under the BC Societies Act in February 2025, it had already collected 7,272 pounds of produce valued at over $25,210.
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it → incorporate → 25,210
“This year we really started to get a lot of youth interest in our organisation, which I think will help us sustain long term,” Lu told Victoria News.
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Lu → start → News
Over the past three years, Lu has collected 9,000 pounds of locally grown crops, valued at more than $32,000, from farmers across Greater Victoria and Vancouver, and donated them rather than allowing them to end up as waste.
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them → collect → waste
From farms to families
Food Recovery Alliance fills a crucial gap.
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Alliance → fill → gap
Every year, farms yield more than they can market.
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they → yield → more
Retailers and wholesalers pass on imperfect or surplus stock.
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Retailers → pass → stock
So the organisation partners with Mustard Seed to collect and redistribute this excess produce to people in need.
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organisation → partner → need
The organisation processes more than 10,000 pounds of rescued food each week from 30-plus donors, reaching roughly 70,000 food-insecure people across the region.
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organisation → process → region
Volunteers show up at farms during harvest season and gather what would otherwise go unharvested or unsold.
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what → show → season
They coordinate delivery to non-profits, which then redistribute it.
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which → coordinate → it
“It’s hard for a lot of farmers to trust someone they don’t know to come on their farm.
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they → ’ → farm
We really want to partner with Rise Up and other organisations, to spread the word and build legitimacy,” Lu told the outlet.
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Lu → want → outlet
After building legitimacy, the organisation is now piloting partnerships with organisations such as Rise Up, aiming to expand its credibility as it grows its Vancouver network.
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it → build → network
She grabbed national attention after winning the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes, which annually recognises 25 young leaders aged 8 to 18 whose service work demonstrates a public impact.
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work → grab → impact
For Lu, the recognition validates what she already knows from the work itself: that youth-led initiatives can scale.
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initiatives → validate → scale
The Aporia
