Guilford County Custodian Earns Employee of the Month Honor for Stocking School Sharing Fridge

Jalil Faucett spends part of every school day collecting what students leave behind: cartons of milk, apple juice, orange juice, carrots, apples, peanut butter and jelly, icees. As lead custodian at Pearce Elementary School in Guilford County, he stocks all of it into the school's Sharing Fridge, a refrigerator supplied by Greensboro nonprofit A Simple Gesture. That work, alongside his pride in maintaining a clean school and his reputation for building relationships with students, earned Faucett the school's Employee of the Month recognition.

The award came with a $50 gift card, a gift provided by the Greensboro Jaycees, a membership group for young professionals and community leaders. Faucett is approaching one year as Pearce Elementary's lead custodian.

The Sharing Fridge is part of A Simple Gesture's Food Recovery program, through which the nonprofit placed refrigerators, called SHARE fridges, in Guilford County Schools district schools. Faucett stocks the unit exclusively with food that is unopened and uneaten. "We'll find milk. We'll find apple juice, orange juice, carrots, apples, peanut butter and jelly, icees," he said.

Once the fridge fills, volunteers from A Simple Gesture take over. They collect boxes of recovered food and sort items by category before loading them for delivery. "We'll separate it in bags like dairy with dairy, apples, fruits with fruits, and we'll load it in her car, and I'll see her [volunteer] again on Friday," Faucett said. Those sorted donations are then distributed to food pantries, churches, and clinics across Guilford County.

A Simple Gesture describes its SHARE refrigerators as a tool to teach students to save food from ending up in landfills. The organization, which focuses on fighting food insecurity in Guilford County, reports donating more than 8 million meals since 2015. Beyond the school program, it runs a Green Bag Food Donor program for individuals, a Food Recovery program for businesses, and a Refugee Feeding Network. Community members looking for food assistance can use the Greater Guilford Food Finder app, visit findfoodnow.net, or call 2-1-1. A Simple Gesture can be reached at asimplegesturegso@gmail.com or by mail at PO Box 4426, Greensboro, NC 27404.