Support the Free Community Meal

The Free Community Meal is an experiment to address food insecurity in Jefferson County. In the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, from 2020-2023, Jefferson County experienced the highest rates of “Low Food Security” (56%) and was the county that utilized Food Assistance the most in Washington State (84%) (WAFoodStudy). In our personal lives and amongst our community, we have seen how food insecurity continues to ravage our community’s well-being in the shadows of the populous retirement community of this area.

We aim to shift the narrative that there is not enough food for everyone to eat and highlight that, with volunteer effort, a commitment to community and out-of-the-box thinking-- there is, in fact, enough for everyone to have a seat at the table.

Continuing on August 25th and running through at least October, Grief Circus and Gleaning ToGather, are hosting a Free Community Meal for all. This is a truly emergent attempt to reweave threads of lost community which so many of us feel in rural America.

The Free Community Meal will be derived from primarily gleaned, foraged, and otherwise donated food that is in abundance locally. We want to see food waste turned into delicious shareable, free food magic and shared communally!

The inaugural Free Community Meal on June 30th, 2024, was a huge success! Along with having over 45 community members attending, an abundance of volunteers from our community showed up to set-up, cook, clean, and tear-down the event.

Thank you to everyone who donated in the past couple of months for our Free Community Meal! During our July Meal, we fed over 100 people - including people who attended the meal and those who benefitted from the extra food and vegetables that our community brought together. For our upcoming meal, we anticipate the same number of people to attend, if not more!

Monetary support for this project is still needed, as we are just beginning this beautiful project. All of the funds donated here will go directly to support the following needs:

Any and all support for this project will be helpful in casting the net of abundant food for everyone as a reality. No donation is too small. We depend on the help of the community we also seek to serve.

Thank you so much for your continued support, and we look forward to seeing out at our next Free Community Meal, August 25th from 4-6pm at the Chimacum Grange!