Terms of Service

GreenSteam is an informational directory of two kinds of independently run listings — food sources (businesses and venues that give away surplus food) and donation programs(organizations that receive donated food) — together with tools that help you reach out to them and keep a private, personal record of your own food-rescue activity. The Service is free, shows no ads, and processes no payments.

GreenSteam is not a volunteer program, a food bank, or a food-rescue operator itself. We only provide information and let you document your own work. We do not organize, host, supervise, or operate any food rescue, collection, transport, storage, or donation, and we do not employ, control, or act as an agent for any listed organization. When you contact, arrange a pickup or drop-off with, volunteer for, or otherwise interact with a listed organization, that relationship is solely between you and that organization.

Food safety is your responsibility. We do not inspect, handle, or vouch for the safety, condition, or legality of any food, and we make no promises that any food is safe to collect, transport, or donate. You are responsible for following the food-safety rules and local laws that apply and for confirming what a donation program will accept. If you are under 18, involve a parent or guardian before collecting or transporting food.

Assumption of risk and release.Collecting, transporting, storing, and donating food are physical activities that carry real risk — including foodborne illness, allergic reactions, injury, traffic and transport risk, entering places you don't know, and risk to the people who receive the food. You take part voluntarily and, to the fullest extent permitted by law, you assume all of these risks and release GreenSteam, the nonprofits that operate it, and their directors, officers, volunteers, and agents from any claims arising out of your food-rescue activities or your interactions with any listed organization. If you are under 18, your parent or guardian accepts this on your behalf.

No in-app messaging.To reach a listing, the Service opens your own email or phone app with details pre-filled; you review and send the message yourself, from your own device and account. The "Connect" button on some listings simply opens that organization's own external signup page in a new tab. GreenSteam does not transmit, receive, or store your messages, and has no visibility into anything you and an organization say to each other.

You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service. If you are under 18, you may use the Service only with the knowledge and permission of a parent or legal guardian — signup asks you to confirm this — and you represent that they have reviewed these Terms and agree to them on your behalf. You should involve them before you volunteer with, or collect or transport food for, a listed organization. GreenSteam does not supervise, chaperone, or vet the safety of any collection, transport, or drop-off, and does not supervise minors who take part. A parent or guardian who lets a minor use the Service accepts the assumption of risk and release in Section 1 on the minor's behalf.

• Accounts use a username and password only. Choose a username that does not include personal information (it does not need to be your real name), and do not impersonate any person or organization. Behind the scenes, our authentication provider assigns your account a synthetic internal identifier shaped like an email address; it is not a real mailbox, no mail is ever sent to it, and you never provide a real email address.
• You are responsible for keeping your password confidential and for all activity under your account.
• There is no password recovery. Because we do not collect email addresses, we cannot send reset links. While signed in, you can change your password or username from your Account page. If you lose your password, contact us — but we may not be able to restore access, and you may need to create a new account.
• One account per person. You may delete your account at any time from the Account page (you will be asked to type DELETE to confirm); deletion permanently removes your credentials, connections, entries, uploaded files, and listing suggestions.

When using the Service, you agree not to:

• break any applicable law or regulation;
• probe, disrupt, overload, or interfere with the Service or its security features, circumvent rate limits or storage limits, or attempt to access data that is not yours;
• scrape, harvest, or bulk-download directory content, or use automated tools to create accounts or submit forms;
• misrepresent your identity or your affiliation with any person or organization, including any listed program or any place you suggest for the directory;
• use the Service to harass, deceive, or harm anyone — including any listed organization or its staff — or to submit false or misleading information;
• upload or share content you don't have the right to share, or that is illegal, infringing, harmful, or that depicts other people without their consent;
• use the reach-out tools to send spam or anything unrelated to genuine food-rescue coordination.

We make reasonable, good-faith efforts to list real organizations and keep listings accurate. Our review before listing an organization is limited to confirming that it exists and appears to run the program described — it is not a safety screening, and we do not conduct background checks on any organization or its staff or volunteers. Listings are provided for information only. We do not certify, endorse, or guarantee any organization, and we make no promises about any organization's conduct, safety practices, legitimacy, availability, or suitability for you.

Before you volunteer, collect food, or drop off a donation, do your own due diligence: research the organization, confirm details directly with them — including that it accepts volunteers your age or donations, what it will hand over or receive, and what supervision, forms, or waivers it requires — and, if you are under 18, involve a parent or guardian. Anything you arrange is at your own decision and risk, on terms you set with the organization.

Links to third-party websites and services (including program signup pages, organization websites, Instagram profiles, and Google Maps directions) are provided for convenience and open outside the Service. We are not responsible for third-party sites, their content, or their privacy and security practices.

You can suggest a place for the directory. When you do, you agree that:

• everything you submit is accurate to the best of your knowledge — including the place's name, type, location, pickup days, website, and contact details;
• you will only mark yourself as representing a place if you actually have authority to speak for it, and you will only submit a venue's public or business contact details, never someone's private information;
• suggestions are reviewed by hand. We may edit, decline, publish, or later remove any suggestion at our sole discretion, and we make no promise that a suggestion will appear in the directory;
• you grant GreenSteam a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, edit, and display the information you submit in order to review it and, if approved, operate the directory. This license for published listing information survives so the directory keeps working, but your suggestions are unlinked from you when you delete your account.

Deliberately submitting false listings, or misrepresenting your connection to a place, is a violation of these Terms and grounds for termination.

Whether and how volunteer hours are recorded and signed off is decided entirely by the organization you volunteer with, and whether those hours are accepted is decided by your school, program, or institution (for example NHS, Bright Futures, or graduation requirements). GreenSteam does not record, verify, certify, or sign off hours and does not guarantee that any hours you earn will be accepted by anyone.

Any record you keep on GreenSteam of your own activity — including the printable record you can export from your impact page — is self-reported and maintained by you; we do not verify, certify, or vouch for it, and the export says so on its face. The impact figures the Service shows (such as meals provided or emissions avoided) are directional estimates calculated from your self-reported pounds using published conversion factors from sources like Feeding America, the U.S. EPA, and ReFED. They are meant to help you see the scale of your work, not to serve as audited or official measurements, and you should not present them as verified data.

The Service's design, text, graphics, logos, and software are owned by or licensed to the nonprofits that operate GreenSteam and are protected by intellectual-property laws. We grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Service for personal, non-commercial purposes. Names and logos of listed organizations belong to their respective owners. Map data and tiles are provided by OpenStreetMap contributors and OpenFreeMap under their own licenses.

Your content.You keep ownership of the notes and media you upload. You grant GreenSteam a limited, non-exclusive license to store, process, and display that content back to you so the Service can function — nothing more. Your entries and media are private to your account; we don't publish them or share them with listed organizations. You are responsible for what you upload, you can delete any entry, file, or your whole account at any time (which ends this license, subject to brief persistence in backups), and we may remove content that violates these Terms. Your uploads may capture other people or places; only upload what you have the right to, and to report content or a rights concern, email us at the address in the Contact section below.

If you send us suggestions or feedback, you agree we may use it without restriction or compensation. We appreciate it — feedback from students and partner organizations is how the Service gets better.

The Service is free, and we may change, suspend, or discontinue any part of it at any time, including the directory's contents, features, and upload or storage limits. We may add, edit, or remove listings at our discretion. If we ever discontinue the Service entirely, we will make reasonable efforts to give notice on the site so you can export your records first.

You may stop using the Service or delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access (and remove content you submitted) if we reasonably believe you violated these Terms, created risk or legal exposure for us or others, or if we discontinue the Service. Sections 1, 5–9, and 12–16 survive termination, along with any other provision that by its nature should survive.

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR SECURE, THAT DIRECTORY INFORMATION IS ACCURATE, COMPLETE, OR CURRENT, OR THAT YOUR RECORDS OR UPLOADS WILL NEVER BE LOST. WE ALSO MAKE NO WARRANTY THAT ANY FOOD IS SAFE, WHOLESOME, OR FIT TO COLLECT, TRANSPORT, OR DONATE, AND NO WARRANTY ABOUT ANY LISTED ORGANIZATION OR THIRD-PARTY SERVICE.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so some of the above may not apply to you.

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, GREENSTEAM, THE DREAMSTEAM FOUNDATION, THE GREEN GURU PROJECT, AND THEIR RESPECTIVE DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, VOLUNTEERS, AND AGENTS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF DATA, OPPORTUNITY, OR GOODWILL — AND, TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, FOR ANY PERSONAL INJURY, ILLNESS, OR PROPERTY DAMAGE — ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR YOUR FOOD-RESCUE ACTIVITIES, INCLUDING ANY INTERACTION OR ARRANGEMENT WITH A LISTED ORGANIZATION — EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS (US$100). THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED FREE OF CHARGE BY NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS, AND THESE LIMITS ARE AN ESSENTIAL PART OF MAKING IT AVAILABLE.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations of liability, so some of the above may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless GreenSteam and the nonprofits that operate it from claims, damages, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from your violation of these Terms, your misuse of the Service, content you upload or submit, or your collection, transport, handling, or donation of food or your interactions with any listed organization. This section does not apply where prohibited by law, and nothing in it requires a minor to indemnify beyond what applicable law allows.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Before filing any claim, you agree to first contact us at the email below and give us 30 days to try to resolve the issue informally — most concerns can be fixed with a conversation. Any dispute that cannot be resolved informally will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Orange County, Florida, and you consent to their jurisdiction, except that either party may pursue an eligible claim in small-claims court.

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we do, we will post the updated version here with a new effective date, and flag material changes on the site. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Terms.

If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, the rest remain in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them to a successor nonprofit program. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service.