Feeding the Mind: Notes on Interning at a Food Rescue Organization

If you're interested in doing good work for a charity with tangible, immediate impacts on the day-to-day lives of the most vulnerable members of society, Scholars of Sustenance is the perfect place to be.

As a second-year student in Political Science, I've been learning about the vital role that NGOs play in alleviating and amplifying the struggles of the most marginalized members of society. However, learning about it in the classroom wasn't enough for me – I consider myself a socially conscious person, so I wanted to get involved with the good work that NGOs do for society, and learn more about how they operate, the civic networks they create, and the impacts that they have on ordinary people's lives.

When I found Scholars of Sustenance and learned about its mission, seeing how it was able to support local communities while also reducing food waste, I knew I had to apply for an internship here. Doing an internship at Scholars of Sustenance was an incredibly fulfilling experience, where I learned a lot about food equity, alleviating inequality, and the NGO sector as a whole.

I was able to participate in a number of fun, unique experiences and was challenged to step outside of my comfort zone, which really helped me to grow both personally and professionally. Interning here gave me a mix of new experiences and new insights, and although it was the first proper internship I've ever undertaken, I felt totally welcomed and wound up having a lot of fun along the way.

To give you some context, Scholars of Sustenance (SOS) is a food rescue nonprofit organization which rescues surplus food from restaurants, retailers, hotels, and other businesses, and redistributes that food to low-income communities in the area.

Their operations here in Thailand have been pretty big, with offices in four cities across the country and some 70 million meals having been distributed in the ten years that they've been in operation. Their impact is twofold: reducing food waste by redistributing surplus or unsold food, and alleviating food insecurity by providing a steady source of meals for vulnerable, low-income communities.

My internship was at the Bangkok office, with the Communications team, and I was given two tasks: making the first edition of the 2026 General Presentation (a daunting but doable project!) and writing a blog detailing my experiences interning for SOS, which is what you're reading right now.

My very first day of the internship was exciting! I came in bright and early and introduced myself to everyone, admittedly very nervous (as one is when the "new kid" status is suddenly acquired) but happy to be there and eager to learn. I met my supervisor, who was very kind, and we discussed briefly what I'd be doing that day:

I'd be going out with one of the Food Rescue trucks on their daily routes to pick up donated surplus food and deliver it to the designated community. I had so much fun tagging along! I sat along in the front seat and chatted with the Food Rescue Ambassador (the person who drives the trucks and picks up the donations) all the way, learning so much about the food rescue process and the details of the entire operation, from the donation process, checking the food, recording the data, food safety standards, and even what types of food they typically receive the most of (hint: it's baked goods!).

We got to visit hotels, restaurants, retail stores, mall community fridges, warehouse distribution centers, and more, all to pick up donated food. At the end of the day we made our way to the designated community and dropped off the food for them. My favourite moment was unloading all of the food and seeing that, among the donated items, there was a pack of yoghurt which had been imported from Britain – the kind of thing I’d never be able to afford! The donated food was all very high quality, and it showed that SOS really does care about the kind of foods that their partner communities receive.

It was really nice to see all the rescued food laid out and the community members lining up to take it home. I learned so much during my first day, both by seeing the process first-hand and by asking questions to the FRA who was with me. Credits to him for entertaining all of my questions and telling me about things I hadn't even thought to ask!

The next day was my first proper day at the office. I'd learned a lot from the food rescue activity, but I still had some questions for the Operations team and the Fundraising team, and my supervisor had set up a little discussion Q&A session for me to satiate my curiosity and get into the details of SOS's work. There was also one other intern there with me, and together we asked a tone of questions about what the fundraising process looks like and some of the main challenges of running an operation with so many collaborators and moving parts. The staff at SOS are mostly on the younger side, which made talking to them a lot less intimidating; by and large, everyone was very pleasant to be around and did their best to make me feel welcome, and I was able to gain a deeper understanding of the entire process. Over the four weeks that I was interning at SOS, my days in the office were mostly spent chatting with the staff and working on the 2026 General Presentation, which was my main task. I'm not very well versed in graphic design, so it was a bit difficult to know where to start, but my supervisor encouraged me along and provided really wonderful guidance, so it wasn't too daunting a task. I sure did my best!

But I wasn't just sitting in the office staring at a screen – I also got to tag along on a bunch of interesting events that showed me all the different work that SOS does. The first one was hosting a booth at an international school's Lunar New Year event, where we got to play some fun games with the school kids and teach them about what SOS does. The second one was a CSR event with a travel company, and I had so much fun with this one! It was called the Community Kitchen Program, where community volunteers lead a cooking session and we distribute the freshly cooked food to locals. It was really fun; the ladies from the community who led the cooking were very kind and friendly, while the company's volunteers were enthusiastic about helping out. Seeing all of the food we helped cook being taken home by a lot of people was very fulfilling. These kinds of community-centered events are what solidifies SOS’s role as a charity which centers the people they work with, allows them agency, and prioritizes solidifying community relationships.

The most important thing I gained from my time here at SOS was a deeper understanding of how important food equity is within urban areas, and what it's like to work at an NGO that interacts with so many different partners. Before this internship, whenever I thought about food loss and food scarcity, I'd always thought of it within the context of rural food deserts, where people in far-off areas don't have a lot of access to fresh, nutritious food; but working here opened my eyes to the fact that income inequality is a big factor in determining the quality of food that people have access too, even in urban areas. I also saw how much food loss companies and businesses accrue at the retail level, which (although still perfectly edible) would have been discarded if SOS didn't exist, and how much the communities appreciate the donations they receive and the work that we do. I learned a lot of things about myself here, too, like the fact that I genuinely enjoy doing work that helps other people.

Even though I was only with SOS for a month, during that time, I'd been able to see clearly the impact that SOS has on reducing food waste and improving the lives of people in vulnerable communities. My perspective had been broadened so much, and I got to see corners of the city which I previously hadn't known about at all.

It’s difficult to visualize those 70 million meals which have been distributed since the founding of SOS in 2016, since it’s such a large number, but interning here helped me see that it’s not just an arbitrary metric; they're real resources that have helped to reduce the financial burden that these households face, and which would otherwise have gone to waste if not for SOS’s operations – a win-win for everyone involved.

I'm really grateful to have had the chance to spend a month learning and working here at SOS. Even though I've been busy with my studies and other extracurricular activities, I found the workload manageable, the staff friendly, and the interactions with the communities incredibly valuable.

Being here has reshaped the way I view food in my daily life and changed how I see the city I live in, too. All in all, interning at SOS was one of the most eye-opening and exciting experiences I've had in my professional life so far, and I hope to be able to take the knowledge and experiences I've gained here and apply them to my other projects in the future.

Finally: kudos to the incredible staff at SOS! I'm incredibly grateful for all of the hard work they do, and especially to my supervisor who took such great care of me during my time at the organisation.

Keep fighting the good fight!

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by Phonprajan Valerie Thompson, Communications Team Intern

30 April 2026, Bangkok, Thailand