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Snapping green beans for the hungry on what could have been her day off from school Monday, Emily Williams was already thinking bigger about the new program at St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac that recovers cafeteria food for the needy.

The Campus Kitchen program, launched on Martin Luther King Jr. Day as part of the day of service, will use on-campus kitchen space and send unused food from the school and other cafeterias that would otherwise go to waste. Students will prepare prepare, cook and deliver meals to Bethesda Cares locations weekly.

But in the quest to salvage food from the cafeteria, Williams, 16, of Silver Spring, said the students should do more.

"I think it's really great. My friend and I were talking actually earlier about how it would be really good if we could recover the recycled food and compost it. A lot of it is produce," Williams said.

For now, students from St. Andrew's — only the second high school to participate in the nationwide college program, after Gonzaga College High School in the District — will now volunteer time on Tuesday evenings to prepare 75 hot and cold meals to serve at Bethesda Cares facilities during the Wednesday lunch hour.

Sue Kirk, Executive Director of Bethesda Cares, which is partnering with D.C. Central Kitchen on the program, said high schools often help out but St. Andrew's commitment is "taking it to a different level."

"They have a kitchen to prepare the food and they're training the children on all the health regulations, and so they'll be operating on a professional level," Kirk said.

Program coordinator Chuck James, a St. Andrew's science teacher, said the food recovery program doesn't snatch an uneaten roll off a school lunch tray to give to the needy. Laws forbid anything that has been served to be served again, but that leaves a lot of room for salvaging food.

"Let's say a local hotel has a banquet and 50 people show up when they plan for 100," James said. "The food that doesn't make it onto the floor [of the dining hall] can be used here."

James said the St. Andrew's program has a goal of reaching the level of 50 percent recovered food as the program progresses — the rest will be donated. Monday, of 150 pounds of food being prepared, a third had been recovered from Marriott, which also donated the chicken students were chopping to be put into pasta. The students also held a food drive Monday, distributing lists of needed items to customers outside the Potomac Village Safeway.

Assembling sandwiches for sack lunches, Aidan Herderschee, 13, of Potomac, said he likes giving back to the community and thought the Campus Kitchens program was a great way to also get something back from the lunchroom.

"I think it's good, because a lot of food goes to waste, it's kind of pointless," Herderschee said, surveying about half a dozen boxes of sack lunches. "Look at all these boxes; that would have all gotten thrown away in a big Dumpster."

Kirk said the food recipients get more than just a meal when the kids serve them, too.

"They love seeing the kids, they love interacting with them, talking sports, you name it," Kirk said. "It's a whole different interaction. I love having the kids in there. They bring a whole different energy."

In addition to a food recovery program at St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac, students in the art department made ceramic bowls for fundraisers to benefit So Others Might Eat. The Empty Bowl dinners — where meals are served in a ceramic bowl that diners keep for $20 — will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. March 9 at The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, 3630 Quesada St., Washington, D.C. and from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. March 11 at St. Charles Catholic Church, 3304 N. Washington Blvd., in Arlington, Va.