31st Ave Open Street for Astoria Food Pantry

Greetings Astorians!

As many folks are already aware, the 31st Ave Open Street's monthly Vendor Market provides direct support to our friends at Astoria Food Pantry, with vendor donations totaling around $2,000 each month.

During the months that the Open Street isn't in operation, the food pantry will lose that important source of revenue, so we're asking our community to pitch in with donations to make up for the winter shortfall.

Astoria Food Pantry (AFP) is a volunteer-run community center that provides free food, clothes, and books to 200+ people per week with no questions asked. They also share their space with Free Store Astoria, The Rolling Library, The People's Bodega, and other local grassroots mutual aid collectives - you can learn more at their website here.

The four months that we won't be able to host a market are November, January, February, and March, so we're aiming to raise 4 months x $2,000 = $8,000 total to help AFP pay the bills while we are on hiatus. With the support of the Open Streets community, we're confident we'll hit that goal in no time!

And if anyone needs a little extra motivation, we would be remiss not to point out that a citywide anti-Open Streets group has raised just under $8k this year themselves - so that they can fund a lawsuit against the city over the Open Streets program. We'd love to send a message about the power of the Open Street community by out-fundraising them and putting that money to good use, feeding and clothing our neighbors!