Be the neighbor who makes it happen
Every green bag in this project moves because one person said yes to a small job with a big ripple. Each coordinator looks after a handful of neighbors or friends, and together those handfuls feed a food bank.
What a coordinator does
- Invites neighbors, friends or your own crew to join, and gets each one a green bag
- Six times a year, gathers the full bags in whatever way suits the group: at game night, after a cold plunge, from neighbors' porches, or as drop-offs on the coordinator's own porch
- Gets everything to the Port Townsend Food Bank by 10 am on pickup Saturday, where the bags are weighed
- Sends a friendly reminder to the group a few days before each pickup
That's the whole job. How you run your group is up to you. The one thing we ask is that the food reaches the Food Bank by 10 am on pickup Saturday. No meetings, no fundraising, no paperwork.
What it takes
Per pickup day: about two to three hours on a Saturday morning, six times a year, when we all bring the food to the Food Bank. How you gather the bags before that is up to you and your group.
Between pickups: a reminder text or email to your group, and a bag delivered to the occasional new member. Minutes, not hours.
What you need: a way to get the bags to the Food Bank, a phone and people. A dozen households makes a great group, but there is no minimum. Start with five; groups grow on their own.
Your group, your shape
A group doesn't have to be a street. Some of ours are neighborhoods, like Island View. One is a game night. One is the cold plunge crew at Fort Worden, proof that any bunch of people who already gather can feed neighbors together. If your book club, your congregation or your Tuesday hiking friends want in, that's a group.
Outside Port Townsend? We're focused on Port Townsend and grow one group at a time. If you live in Port Hadlock, Port Ludlow or the Tri-Area, the Neighborhood Food Project can help you start a Food Project of your own.
The perks
Twice a year we gather to celebrate, because feeding your neighbors should be fun. For the October and December pickups, coordinators decorate holiday bags together, which is exactly the kind of wholesome chaos it sounds like. Mostly, though, you'll know your neighbors in a way most people never do.
Ready, or just curious?
Send us a message and choose “I want to become a coordinator.” Trish, our facilitator, will walk you through everything, help you pick your area or group, and get you your first stack of green bags. Not sure yet? Ask anyway.