What is Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue?
On Sunday, July 22, 2026 Lenli Corbett Kountze, CEO/President of Saving Grace Food Rescue was in worship to talk to us about this non-profit organization and how we might continue our partnership with Saving Grace.
Saving Grace is a metro area nonprofit. They serve Pottawattamie, Douglas, and Sarpy County. And their mission is really focused on rescuing the excess food that already exists in our community and then delivering it out to a network of nonprofits who feed our neighbors.
Linley told us, “In our country alone, about 30% of food goes to waste. And yet, just in our metro area, we have almost 120,000 neighbors who are considered food insecure. They're hungry. That means they don't consistently know where their next meal is coming from. We are really dedicated to this idea that excess food and hungry people should not coexist. If we have excess food, we should be feeding people with that. And so our mission is moving that food around our community.”
Saving Grace operates a fleet of refrigerated trucks that operate five days a week, Monday through Friday. Pick up starts at 6:30 in the morning. They pick up produce, protein, dairy, and grains. Last year they had 163 food donor partner businesses - grocery stores, caterers, event centers who said, "Our food should not be going to waste. We want to make sure it gets out into the community." And then Saving Grace delivered that to 59 different nonprofit organizations around the three county area. Homeless shelters, pantries, transitional living, afterschool programs, senior centers, and many other places around our community where our neighbors are in need are being directly served. That's really what Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue is, a matchmaker that makes sure that excess food helps to feed hungry people.
Linley added, “Your generosity helps to create ripples throughout the entire community through your gift to Saving Grace, which we're so incredibly grateful about. It helps keep our trucks moving. It helps to make sure that we can get more of that good food out to partners.”
Saving Grace's Community Impact
Last year, Saving Grace rescued and redistributed 938,269 pounds of food, which is about 750,000 meals from food that already existed. In their lifetime, they have rescued over 10 million pounds of food. Food that already existed. That 10 million pounds is over 8.3 million meals that have fed community members around our three-county area. Last year, the value of what Saving Grace provided to the community was about $2.9 million in food.
The director said, “Thank you. Thank you, pastor. And it's really through the generosity of community members like yourselves that help keep that mission going. We deliver all of that food free of charge to those nonprofits. Now, those dollars that they normally would have spent on that food can be redirected to services. That is significant when we think about how we might employ creative common sense solutions to be able to tackle hunger.”
Community Fridge Project
Saving Grace extends their work through the community fridge project. If you're familiar with the little free library idea where you can drop off items and pick them up, this is really a sort of an expansion of that mutual aid exchange idea. A shelter or shed is built on site. In that shelter lives a household fridge and pantry shelves.
Saving Grace works to weekly deliver perishable items and then community members are encouraged to be collaborators in that. When you think about excess food from your own gardens or you're going on vacation and that bunch of bananas that will be overripe when you get back, pass it on to a neighbor. And when we think about who needs food, we all need food. So, it's not us or them. It's a community that we're serving. So, people are encouraged to take what they need and leave what they can.
Saving Grace just launched their first Council Bluffs shelter at Timothy Lutheran on 31st and Broadway with more locations coming. There are three of them running in Omaha right now. In 2025 over 25,000 pounds of food went out through the fridges just from Saving Grace’s deliveries alone.
Linley offered, “I speak for our whole staff and board for the generosity that you're showing and we really look forward to working with you on the community fridge.
Presentation of Second Quarter Tithe
Pastor Brian: Linley, we know that working with a nonprofit is really a labor of love. It's a calling. So what's your personal tie in with this? What made you want to be a part of this?
Linley: You know, I'm really encouraged by the work of Saving Grace and how we think about hunger in our community. It's really hard to do anything if you're hungry. And so step one, how do we as a community feed people? The other piece that really motivates me about our mission is the environmental impact that we can have through our work. Unfortunately, landfills are filled with food and when that food decomposes, it releases methane gas that negatively impacts our climate and environment. One of the most significant ways that we can create a healthier environment for all is just to keep food out of landfills. So whether we think about food coming out of our own houses; whether we compost, buy less, freeze, or buy in bulk with your neighbors, we are creating cleaner air for us all. Iowa and America need farmers. The Midwest feeds people. We shouldn't have all of this food that we've spent time and money and resources on going to waste. So, the impact that we can make by feeding people and creating a healthier environment is something that motivates me every day.
Pastor Brian: “Thank You. We've got a tithe of the gifts we received from April through June for our mission partner, Saving Grace. Ten percent of what we took in was not an even number. So, we had an anonymous donor donate about $300 to help round it out. It is our honor to present Saving Grace with a check for $10,000 to support the work they do. So, thank you for all the work you do and for allowing us to be a small part of it. And thank you for being here today. Yeah, we appreciate it.”