Power couple, Jennell and Wardell Baldwin III are passionate about serving their community and reducing waste. This month we are celebrating their one year anniversary serving at our Saturday Really (Really) Free Market outdoor grocery giveaway. Like many of our In-Service members, Jennell and Wardell invest in For All by making a monthly financial pledge that offsets their annual carbon footprint as well as volunteering their time as For All In-Service Members on a regular basis. We are so grateful to have Jennell and Wardell as part of our For All community!

iIn February 2021, For All was asked to take on an early Saturday morning grocery surplus pickup that no other food bank or meal program in Seattle could handle. Understandably so, since the pickup must be done between the hours of 4AM and 7AM every Saturday morning, a time that most organizations are not operating. 

One of For All's specialties is filling in the gaps for traditional 9A-5P hunger relief organizations by doing grocery surplus pickups on weekends and holidays. Naturally, we took this opportunity to revitalize a decades old Saturday Really (Really) Free Market grocery giveaway in the Yesler/First Hill neighborhood of Seattle  that had temporarily shut down due to construction and then had to shut down long term due to COVID-19. 

This month we are celebrating our 1 year anniversary of the revival of the Saturday Really (Really) Free Market. Every Saturday morning, rain or shine, a hearty group of about 15 In-Service Members gather in the plaza outside of the Yesler Community Center at 7:15 AM to huddle up and unload the grocery surplus food that the EARLY 5:45 AM crew gathered that morning. In-Service members help to set up and distribute an average of 3 tons of groceries to hundreds of community members from 8-9:30 AM each week.

The food that we distribute on Saturdays is grocery surplus, meaning that it is the food the stores pulled off the shelves to make room for more shipments of food. Programs like the Really (Really) Free Market redirect valuable and viable resources into the hands of the community, diverting it from being thrown away and shipped to landfills out of state. 

Here's how you can help:

• Come shop at the Saturday Really Free Market. The more you participate, the more you are helping us fulfill our mission to reduce waste efficiently and effectively. 
• Make a monthly financial pledge that supports this and our many other waste reduction programs and offset your annual carbon footprint at the same time!
• Become a Saturday Really Free Market In-Service Member by registering as a volunteer on our website. 

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We first met Sally Kellaway as a neighbor taking an early Saturday morning stroll past Yesler Park where For All was hosting one of our first Saturday Really (Really) Free Market revival food sharings. One year later, Sally is one of our most consistent Really Free Market In-Service Members and a valued part of the For All community. Sally shows up  on Saturdays mornings with an attitude of leadership among fellow In-Service Members and compassion toward the community, rain or shine.

At each Free Burrito Project Event, For All creates over 600 from-scratch, plant-based, dietary Vegan, Halal, and Kosher burritos and wrap them in compostable paper with the help of dozens of volunteers to share the freely with the community.

The Free Burrito Project:

• Demonstrates high standards of environmental sustainability
  • Surplus food diverted from landfills becomes plant-based burrito filling. 
  • Burritos are packaged in compostable wrappers, no plastic plates or forks necessary. 
  • Tortillas are purchased from small businesses to support the local economy. 
• Creates positive ripple effects that uplift the community and benefit us all collectively
  • We engage volunteers in burrito preparation and rolling, then work together to distribute burritos freely all over the city. Burritos are shared with local shelters and encampments, at food bank and Really Free Market lines, through mobile street outreach, and are enjoyed by friends and neighbors...these burritos are FOR ALL. 
• Is a practice in the Gift Economy
  • We share freely from our access to an abundance of recovered resources to benefit our community and ourselves

Want to help For All share even more free food with the community? Visit our Volunteer page and find out how you can offset your annual carbon footprint by making a Monthly Pledge to For All today!

Melissa is one of For All's many monthly pledge members who double their carbon footprint offset by shopping with friends and household members at our Saturday Really (Really) Free Market, helping to keep grocery surplus food from being shipped to landfills out of state. Participating as a monthly pledge member helps to offset annual carbon footprint and helps to keep funding for programs like For All's Saturday Really (Really) Free Market predictable and sustainable. Thank you Melissa for sharing and supporting For All! Learn more about our monthly pledge and carbon offset program on our Pledge page. 

Andy is a long-term For All volunteer who has helped out with just about all of our many waste reduction, resource sharing programs over the past year. This includes sharing grocery kits with kids and families through our Meals for Kids program, helping create and roll plant-based burritos through our Free Burrito Project, helping to recover and distribute grocery surplus food to the community through the Really (Really) Free Markets, and distribute resources throughout the Greater Seattle area through the Community Box Delivery program. 

For All is fueled by over 75 volunteers who contributed over 10,000 hours of community service in 2021 alone. Learn more and sign up to join the For All volunteer community here.