The Seattle Community Pantry project exists to provide an alternative to the existing dominant food distribution structure. The project is a network for sharing community grown, harvested, reclaimed, direct from farm, and bulk-purchased food.

We aim to redistribute the surplus of food within our local area. To get food before it is displaced as waste, we get direct overstock from producers, businesses, or food stores. For gathering, we have teams who dumpster regularly. For bulk orders, we keep the pantry well stocked in: grains, legumes, lentils, baking needs, and sometimes pasta, nuts, canned goods, seeds. We will sometimes have a surplus of certain reclaimed items (from events, harvests) that can be either preserved in some way or given back to the community through Food Not Bombs. There are also treats such as coconut milk or reformed chocolate which people self-ration.

Household shares are based on an equilibrium between intake and output. This formula revolves around a few complementary forms of exchange: money, time, and space. Money serves us well to support the bulk purchases and rent us the space in the University District. We need this space to operate a rooted service for the community. Time is also needed: we make this network flourish or flounder. We have various needs including, but not limited to: cleaning, dumpster diving, making specialty food items, ordering, picking up orders, errands… All these account for what happens within the pantry and our community.

Meetings¶

General meetings occur on the first Tuesday of every other month at Sherwood Coop at 7 pm. At this time, we’ll collect monthly share dues from all members and take bulk order wish lists, as well as discuss any pertinent issues.

Supplementary discussion meetings and work parties occur at other scheduled times. They will be announced on the mailing list.

Mailing List¶

Please, we love new community interests. Let us know who you are and how you would like to be involved!

To join the pantry announcements mailing list send an E-mail to mitchell @ silverninja dot net or matt @ lackof dot org

E-mail sent to the riseup list subscription request may be ignored