Robert Kalt left his job as meeting planner for Johnson &
Johnson, New Brunswick, N.J., with a mission: He wanted to find
a better way to dispose of all the extra food and goodies at the
end of a meeting, rather than dumping them in the garbage. “The
event industry has been historically a glut of excess when it
comes to the social end of events,” he says.  Kalt's solution is
Special E, a small, but growing, business he founded in mid-2006
that arranges for the collection of leftovers from meetings and
events and donates them to people or organizations in need.
Planners interested in the service go to and fill out a
“Deliver-E” form or get in touch with Special E by e-mail. With
the specs in hand, Special E's volunteers coordinate pickup
information for a growing network of vendors that can get the
leftovers to people in need. The idea, says Kalt, is to get food
to places such as food banks; flower arrangements to local
hospitals; and giveaways such as T-shirts, caps, and sweatshirts
to people who can use the