Starting this at your school is a route, not a signup.

STOCK THE BLOCK: HEALTH CODE MEMO (TEMPLATE)
For food service directors and school administrators

WHAT THIS COVERS
This memo explains why unopened, sealed share-table surplus is generally
lower-risk to release than prepared or served food, and what record a
school should keep before releasing it. It is a starting template, not
legal advice. Read the bracketed sections and fill them in with your
own health department's guidance before relying on it.

WHAT COUNTS AS TCS FOOD
Time/Temperature Control for Safety (TCS) food is food that can support
rapid bacterial growth if it sits at an unsafe temperature: milk and
dairy, cut produce, anything that needs refrigeration. Most share-table
surplus (sealed milk cartons, prepackaged snacks, whole fruit) is
lower-risk than prepared or served food because it was never opened,
plated, or handled after packaging. That does not mean it is exempt
from time/temperature rules. It means the risk profile is different
from a steam-table item that sat out during lunch service.

WHY A TEMPERATURE RECORD IS WHAT LETS YOU RELEASE IT
A school cannot show a box of surplus was safe by asserting it. It has
to show it. A written record of the load's temperature from pack-out to
hand-off is the artifact a health department or a skeptical parent can
actually check. No record, no defensible release.

PLANNED, NOT YET IN PLACE: the intended fallback for a run that goes out
without a logger unit is a documented model of that route's typical
time-and-temperature profile, built from previous logged runs on the
same route. No such model exists yet, and it cannot exist until a route
has accumulated logged runs to build it from. Until then, treat a run
without a logger unit as having no temperature record at all, and do not
release against a model that has not been built and validated with your
health department.

[Insert your local health department's specific guidance on TCS food
donation and record-keeping. Verify it with your health department
before relying on this memo. Requirements vary by jurisdiction.]

LIABILITY: THE BILL EMERSON GOOD SAMARITAN FOOD DONATION ACT
The federal Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act protects
schools and other good-faith donors from civil and criminal liability
if a food item donated in good faith later causes harm, except in cases
of gross negligence or intentional misconduct. It does not replace
local health code compliance; a school still has to follow its state
and local food safety rules. What the Emerson Act does is remove the
liability fear that keeps some schools from donating at all, once
they're already following the rules above.

BEFORE YOU RELEASE A BOX
  1. Confirm every item is sealed and unopened: nothing served, nothing
     plated, nothing that touched an open steam table.
  2. Confirm the box has a temperature record covering pack-out to
     hand-off, from a logger unit. (The route-model fallback described
     above is planned and not yet available. Until it is built, a run
     without a logger unit has no temperature record.)
  3. Confirm the record is attached to a box ID that appears on the
     delivery manifest.
  4. Keep the record after the delivery. It's what you'd show if
     anyone ever asked what happened to the surplus.

[Insert your school's contact for questions about this memo]
[Insert local health department name and contact]

This is a template. Read it, adapt it, verify it with your own health
department. Do not treat it as a substitute for their guidance.

STOCK THE BLOCK: PARTNER AGREEMENT (TEMPLATE)
One page, signed before the first run.

This agreement is between:

  School / releasing site:  [Insert school name]
  Receiving site:           [Insert partner organization name]

Effective date: [Insert start date]

WHAT IS BEING DONATED
Sealed, unopened surplus food from the school's cafeteria share table
only. Nothing served, nothing plated, nothing opened. Every box carries
a temperature record covering pack-out to hand-off (see the accompanying
health code memo).

PICKUP / DELIVERY CADENCE
Cadence is negotiated per-partner and is not fixed by this template. A
new route may start at once or twice a week and increase from there as
it proves reliable (see the "getting started" page's cadence guidance
for why starting slow and consistent beats starting ambitious and
unreliable). The agreed cadence for this partnership:

  Day(s) of week: [Insert]
  Time: [Insert]
  Route / drop-off point: [Insert]

LIABILITY
This donation is made under the protection of the federal Bill Emerson
Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, which shields good-faith donors and
receiving organizations from liability for food donated in good faith,
except in cases of gross negligence or intentional misconduct. Both
parties acknowledge this protection applies to the donations covered by
this agreement.

WHAT EACH SIDE COMMITS TO
  The school commits to: releasing only sealed, unopened, temperature-
  logged surplus, and notifying the receiving site if a scheduled
  pickup will be missed or delayed.

  The receiving site commits to: confirming receipt on the manifest for
  every delivery (see the accompanying intake workflow), and notifying
  the school if it can't take a delivery on a given date.

Either party may end this agreement with [Insert notice period] written
notice to the other party.

SIGNATURES

  School representative:                   Date:
  ______________________________           ____________

  Name / title: [Insert]

  Receiving site representative:           Date:
  ______________________________           ____________

  Name / title: [Insert]

[Insert any additional local requirements your health department or
school district requires for this agreement, if any.]

STOCK THE BLOCK: INTAKE WORKFLOW
For pantry staff and volunteers, at delivery

When a delivery arrives, work through this checklist before signing
off. Do not close out the manifest line until all four are confirmed.

  1. CONFIRM THE BOX ID
     Match the box ID on the delivery to the corresponding line on the
     delivery manifest. If there's no matching line, don't accept the
     box as a normal delivery. Flag it instead.

  2. CONFIRM THE COLD-CHAIN LOG
     Check the box's temperature log from the logger unit. The load
     needs to have stayed at or below 41°F throughout, the same "in
     range" threshold used on the site's cold-chain readout. If any
     reading is above 41°F, the box is "danger zone," not "in range."
     Flag it and use your own judgment (and your health department's
     guidance) before distributing that food.

     If a run arrives with no logger unit, it arrives with no
     temperature record. The route-model fallback described elsewhere on
     the site is planned and not yet built, so there is currently
     nothing to check against. Treat the box as unverified and use your
     own judgment before distributing it.

  3. CONFIRM THE COUNT / WEIGHT
     Check that the item count or weight in front of you matches what
     was logged before the box left the school. Note any discrepancy;
     don't silently correct the manifest number to match what arrived.

  4. SIGN TO CLOSE OUT THE MANIFEST LINE
     Once 1–3 are confirmed, sign to close out the line. This is what
     moves the delivery from "en route" to "received" on the public
     log. Corrections after this point append as new lines rather than
     editing the closed entry, so the record doesn't get quietly changed
     after the fact.

If something doesn't check out (box ID doesn't match, temperature log
shows a danger-zone reading, count is off) don't sign it off as a
clean delivery. Flag it. The whole point of the public log is that it's
checkable; a flagged delivery is more useful than a clean-looking one
that wasn't actually clean.