Help Your Community

Do you have an idea for a project to help your community waste less food? Apply for a Waste-Free Communities Matching Grant!

Share Food

If you have extra food you can’t eat, try sharing it with your friends, family, neighbors, and community. This is also a great choice if you have extra vegetables and fruits from your garden and fruit trees!

• Contact City Fruit to request help harvesting your fruit trees and donating fruit you don’t need.
• If you’re moving, donate your unopened, non-perishable foods through Move for Hunger.

Learn how businesses can donate surplus food.

Volunteer

Seattle has many great organizations that collect extra food and give it to people in need. Volunteering for these organizations is a great way to help your community waste less food.

• Food Lifeline: Volunteers sort and pack rescued food to give out to more than 275 food banks, shelters, and meal programs across Western Washington.
• Operation Sack Lunch: Volunteers help cook and serve hot meals for hungry residents of Seattle.
• City Fruit Volunteers: Volunteers help care for fruit trees and harvest fruit to support the rescue of more than 36,000 pounds of fruit every year from Seattle homes and public orchards.
• Solid Ground: Volunteers help grow food on the farm to donate to local food banks, and help with nutrition classes for the community.

For more donation and volunteer opportunities, find a food bank or meal program near you.

Educate

To request free print materials to hand out to your Seattle clients, customers, residents, and community, contact Sheryl Anayas at (206) 684-3453 or sheryl.anayas@seattle.gov. Materials will be mailed or delivered to you. We are only able to give out materials for use in Seattle. To request materials for King County residents who live outside of Seattle, visit King County’s web site.

Also contact Veronica Fincher if you would like a food waste prevention presentation for your Seattle classroom, faith-based organization, community group, or residents. Or if you would like us to staff an educational table at your event. We can’t guarantee we’ll be able to fill all requests, but we’ll do our best! We are only able to provide education services in Seattle.
Additional opportunities to learn more about where our food comes from:

• Solid Ground offers farm tours and hosts student field trips.
• Tilth Alliance offers farm tours, farm camps, classroom education, and adult classes.