The Utica (NY) City School District routinely sends leftover food that would otherwise be thrown away to the local Rescue Mission, where it helps feed 140 individuals three meals a day, reports the Utica Observer-Dispatch. Daily amounts shipped to the Mission vary as the district tries to maintain a three- to five-percent overproduction rate while feeding some 6,000 students each day.
Utica Rescue Mission depends on donations for about 60 percent of its food needs and the school district provides about a tenth of that total. Utica City Schools is able to donate the food without liability worries because of a 1996 law, the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, which shields donors of food given in good faith. The leftovers are picked up from schools at the end of the school day and served that evening.
