Being a Good Samaritan is Legal

I started by marching up to our dining hall managers and I asked them you know what do you do with your excess food? They said well we try not to have any and I said well how often does that work out for you? And after a lot of pushing and prodding they admitted that they do have access food but they have to throw it away and so I said well why would you throw it away when you could go right across the street to people in people's park and donate it and they said because of liability we don't do that so I did my own research and I discovered that in 1996 Congress passed what is called the bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act and it protects all donors regardless of whether your corporation organization or individual from any liability and get this in the last twenty-three years the number of lawsuits or legal claims that have been filed against any business or individual has been zero.

Really?

But everybody in their mother has like a second cousin twice removed uncle's hotel that's shut down because they donated food when in fact that never happened.

But so then how did you go from that realization to actually coming up with a solution that matched businesses that have food with nonprofits that need food?

Yeah and so you know after I've discovered this act I printed it out. I demand a meeting with the executive director of our dining hall and I said you know I want to start this donation program here's the right this is the right thing to do here's all the protection.

I love it here you are all I don't know nineteen/twenty years old marching around saying I want this done.

I could be pretty persuasive when I need a way and so in less than 10 minutes he agreed and we went off to start one of the nation's first food recovery organizations on a college campus.