food recovery resources for Official Chapters
Below are a number of resources, forms, and guides designed for FRN Chapters that are engaged in food recovery work. If you have any follow-up questions or need additional support, please reach out to our team at programs@foodrecoverynetwork.org.
Food Recovery Resources
Food Tracking Form
Chapters who select the Food Recovery Track should always submit a Food Tracking Form (FTF) to FRN National to let us know how many pounds of food your chapter recovered. This data helps us understand how much surplus food our network moves every year, and what that impact looks like in terms of environmental and social benefit. It’s also really fun to celebrate the impact of each FRN Chapter! FRN Chapters can fill out an FTF every time they have a food recovery, once per month, or once per semester. Just remember that if your chapter fills out an FTF on a monthly or semesterly basis, someone needs to keep a log of all the food recoveries to input later.
Food Safety
Food safety is a critical component of food recovery work and we want to ensure that all students in our network have a comprehensive understanding of food donation guidelines and how to handle and transport food to community partner organizations. Check out the various resources FRN has put together, with support from our dining service partners, to ensure that your Chapter is well-versed in food safety.
Guide to Food Recovery
FRN’s Guide to Food Recovery was created to support our chapters in creating and growing food recovery programs. This comprehensive guide includes over 40 pages of information and links to various resources to support our student leaders. There’s a lot to review, from tips to identify a food donor to advice for determining transportation logistics, but the document is easy to navigate using the Table of Contents to find the information you need.
Guide to Planning an End of Semester Food Drive
Every year, dozens of FRN chapters plan a campus-wide food recovery event to ensure that surplus non-perishable food from student dorms is recovered and donated to local nonprofit organizations. End of semester food drives tend to be organized at the end of the spring semester, but some chapters organize these events at the end of the fall semester as well. This is an impactful and low-touch opportunity to recover food from your campus, support your chapter’s partner agencies, and educate the campus community about food waste.
Partner Agency Agreement form
Food recovery would not be possible without strong partnerships between FRN Chapters and local hunger-fighting nonprofit organizations. These forms will help your chapter navigate the conversation with your nonprofit partner, or partner agency, to ensure that the roles and process to recover and receive surplus food are clear.
Grant Application
Food Recovery Network financially supports Official Chapters, up to $150 per semester. Grants are awarded to applicants on a rolling basis. This grant is available to maintain the strength and activation of our Chapters. As we have a limited amount of funds, we encourage you to seek funding from your campus and community in addition to this grant.
Upload photos
FRN National expects all FRN Chapters to send us 2-3 photos per semester so that we can continue to celebrate your accomplishments and shout out the amazing work that you do. Photos also help FRN National showcase the impact that our Chapters have and the importance of this work to our external partners and supporters.
Have Questions? Give us a call
FRN's Program Team can be reached by calling the office at (240) 615-8813, via email at programs@foodrecoverynetwork.org, or by text at (240) 473-3778.