Community Solidarity has a legion of volunteers who rescue plant-based groceries from supermarkets and farms. These are foods, that while perfectly healthy, would have ended up in the landfill had we not intervened. We share all the groceries we rescue for free with tens of thousands of people in need across Long Island & NYC. The sharing happens at weekly distribution locations we lovingly call Food Shares and across local soup kitchens and community organizations as well. In 2019 we rescued and shared over 7 million pounds of groceries. You can help us do even more in 2020!

Every dollar donated to Community Solidarity helps us rescue and share 32.8 pounds of groceries! A $32 donation will help us collect enough food to feed a person for an entire year! A $125 donation will help us collect and share a year's worth of groceries for a family of four! And a $1,000 donation will provide 1 week of healthy groceries for over 900 people! 

Community Solidarity is the healthiest hunger relief organization in the country! While produce makes up 8% of what average American soup kitchens and food pantries distribute, at Community Solidarity produce makes up 51-76% of what we share (depending on season). The rest of what we share are items like whole grain bread, organic unprocessed grocery items, and perishable items without chemical preservatives. 

The volunteers at Community Solidarity are health nerds. We monitor over 300 nutritional metrics for all the foods we share 24/7. This means we know exactly how much Iron, or Protein, of Fat we are bringing to the communities we work in. Monitoring what we share allows us to measure the health effects we have on the communities we help, and those effects are huge! 

Many of the areas we work in are considered food deserts, these are areas where nutritious groceries are unavailable and fast food or junk food items are readily available. As a result, public health problems like diabetes, heart diseases, obesity, ADHD, and cancer are much greater in these communities. By sharing healthy plant-based groceries in these areas Community Solidarity is not just alleviating hunger, we're improving and saving lives.

Every week over 5,700 people have all their total weekly nutritional needs met by Community Solidarity and our Food Shares. These are people who now have a substantially reduced risk for a variety of health problems. Your donations can help us help even more people in 2020.  

Community Solidarity doesn't just share food. We share any necessity that our fellow community members might need. Nessiesities like clothing, school supplies, books, toys, bicycles, appliances, gardening supplies (so people can grow their own food), sleeping bags, tents and anything that is needed by the thousands of people who come to us each week. 

We're Community Solidarity because we believe in solidarity with the community. We share anything that will uplift people out of poverty, improve their quality of life or reduce the economic burdens that come with poverty. Sharing necessities is a big part of our mission and the average person who comes to our Food Shares benefits by saving roughly $80 a week on their general expenses. Over the period of a year, an individual coming to a Community Solidarity Food Share is able to save over $4,160. That's enough to pay some mortgage payments or a couple of heating bills. It's enough to deal with an unexpected car expense or a trip to the doctor. It's money for a family's college fund and it's needed wiggle room for the thousands of struggling families who come to Community Solidarity.

Or as an 85-year-old grandmother at our Hempstead Food Share put it. It's enough to take her grandkids to the movies once a month.

When you donate to Community Solidarity, you help us help thousands of people improve their lives. Because of our amazing network of volunteers who rescue food and other necessities 24/7, every dollar you donate is transformed into nearly a thousand dollars of assistance for the people coming to our Food Shares.        

Food waste is a huge problem; it's even a major contributor to global warming. Ironically global warming is increasing food insecurity across the planet. So Community Solidarity is tackling these problems in the best way we know how. With a large network of volunteers, we work with local supermarkets and farms to rescue perfectly healthy plant-based groceries from the trash. We then share these groceries with tens of thousands of hungry families across Long Island & NYC. 

In 2019, Community Solidarity rescued over 7 million pounds of groceries and in doing so we prevented over 6,122,250 pounds of CO2 from getting released into the atmosphere. Our mission is to help people, animals, and the planet. Rescuing plant-based groceries from the trash and sharing them with the hungry helps fulfill all three.

Still, we have a long way to go. In 2019 we estimate that nearly 27 million pounds of edible groceries were tossed in the trash every day! That's enough to feed the estimated 182k people who go hungry on Long Island every night multiple times over! 

We have the will, we have the supply of food, what we need are more funds to help us rescue these groceries from the trash. With your help, we can expand our mission even further!