Food left over from Cavendish Beach Music Festival donated to non-profits

What happens to the food left over from the Cavendish Beach Music Festival?

That is where Emily Browning steps in.

"Food rescue is important because everyone needs food, everyone deserves access to good and healthy food to eat," said Browning, the operations manager for food-rescue organization Second Harvest on P.E.I. and New Brunswick.

"So, food rescue is making sure that all the food we're producing is actually making its way to plates instead of landfills."

The food could include produce, pre-made meals and frozen goods.

This is the third year Second Harvest will be getting food from the festival, which ended Saturday night, and are looking at getting a large amount of food this year.

"We're anticipating a couple thousand pounds this year," she said. "In the previous years it's also been a couple thousand pounds. One pound of food really makes a huge difference, so we're happy to get as much as we can."

One of the non-profit organizations benefiting from this year's music fest is Gifts from the Heart.

Betty Begg-Brooks is the CEO and founder of the charity. It serves over 3,000 people. She operates three community fridges.

She said operational costs are high. Getting rescued food will help lower food bills for the charity. "We buy a lot of our food, too, so this is going to help us immensely."

Begg-Brooks said she has been doing charity work for over six decades and that times have been getting hard for people.

"It's important because this is my passion, this is my 61st year of doing this kind of work, and I see every day new people come in, regular people come in, and they can't make ends meet," she said.

Gifts from the Heart had five vehicles in Cavendish to take the food back, Begg-Brooks said she is expecting to take home over a thousand pounds of food from this year's festival.

"We usually take about a thousand pounds," she said. "A thousand pounds, that's a lot, but this time there is more."

To avoid any waste, Begg-Brooks said she will call churches and the Salvation Army to make sure the food gets to where it is needed.