Tired of throwing away leftover food after meetings?
SPOON can help!
Stanford Project on Hunger (SPOON) was created in 1987 to collect and save unused,
leftover food on campus for distribution to the hungry and homeless community
of Palo Alto. SPOON student volunteers collect food that would otherwise be
wasted from campus dining halls, row houses, eating clubs, and special events;
the food is then reheated and turned into meals by the Urban Ministry of Palo
Alto, which uses food from Stanford to help create and serve meals throughout
the week.
Although most of SPOON's food has
in the past come from University Dining Services and Row Houses, food from special
events and meetings has been too largely overlooked. While we have collected
some food from these spontaneous events in the past, we want to devise a system
that will increase SPOON's knowledge of, and food collection from, such events
and meetings.
Collecting and storing food for SPOON is easy! All that you need to do is contact
a SPOON coordinator before the event is to take place (if possible), and we
will schedule a volunteer to arrive at the close of the event with the appropriate
bags and materials for food pickup. If an event is occurring at or near to the
Haas Center and it would be more convenient to do so, you may also package and
store the food yourself.
To bag and store food personally,
all you need to do is place the unserved food (food that no one has taken on
an individual plate) in aluminum SPOON trays located in the brown shed at the
back of the Haas Center. Food should be transferred with sterile utensils and
should be refrigerated or frozen within two hours of preparation and service.
The tray should be covered (cover also located within the Haas SPOON shed) weighed
and logged into the red log book, and labeled with a paper tag, on which one
should write the date and a brief description of the food item (often unrecognizable
after freezing!).
Donating to SPOON is easy, personally
rewarding, and poses no legal risk to you, your organization, or SPOON. Although
the greatest care should be taken to assure that donated food is clean and healthful,
The Bill Emerson Food Donation Act, passed by President Bill Clinton in 1996
(a copy of the law is on SPOON's website) prevents you from being held responsible
in the case that someone becomes sick as a result of eating your food.
For more information about donating
to SPOON, please contact our directors at spoon@haas.stanford.edu.
or visit our website at hunger.stanford.edu.
Thank you!!
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