Before graduating from Chagrin Falls High School, Helen ver Duin delivered food as a carhop and waitress. Today, she is recognized as a worldwide authority in non-profit food distribution. A third generation social-service worker, Helen ver Duin Palit operates on the premise that there is enough extra food in every city to feed every person. She is the founder and executive director of City Harvest, a nonprofit organization that provided millions of free meals to hungry and homeless people in New York City since its inception in 1982. New York City’s Mayor Edward Koch said of her program, “It is an extraordinarily simple yet brilliant idea.” The world is now taking notice of this Chagrin grad’s innovative concepts. Each day, numerous large cities with programs patterned after City Harvest, collect thousands of unused food from restaurants, supermarkets, caterers, and corporate dining rooms, and then distribute it to soup kitchens, senior citizen centers, drug rehabilitation centers, and any other agencies that feed the poor. Helen has appeared on television in the U.S., Canada, and Japan. President Bush recognized her as his Fourth Point of Light in his ‘Thousand Points of Light’ National Community service Program in 1989. She has been featured in Business Week, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Family Circle, Weekly Reader, New York Times, and Christian Science Monitor. A graduate of Texas Tech University, Helen was awarded Iona College’s Doctorate of Humanitarian Letters in 1987.