Fished a great book? Share it with the community! 

Do you have books that are just laying around your home collecting dust? Share them at your local Food Share. Books of all varieties are always welcomed, but in particular educational books are most cherished. These include books on gardening, cooking, science, art, etc...

We encourage everyone to help support our community library by sharing and exchanging books. Everyone is welcome to take the books at our Food Shares, read them and keep them if they'd like or bring them back to share with one of their neighbors.

How you can help:

• Share your second-hand books.
• Ask your local bookstore if they throw out any books and if they do ask if they'd be interested in sharing them with the Community Solidarity.
• If you're a college student encourage your fellow students not to throw out their old books or sell them for "Chump Change", encourage them to share with Community Solidarity.
• If you see nice books on the side of the road, pick them up and bring them to a Food Share.
• Bring whatever you collect to any of our Food Share locations. 

School Supplies are another item that we are always looking for because families with children make up a large portion of the people who come to our Food Shares. School supplies can be very expensive so we try to make sure that we have them available at our Food Shares, for free, as often as we can, and especially at the start of each school year.

The items we are looking for are as follows - notebooks, backpacks, art supplies (markers, colored pencils, crayons, sketch pads, water colors, paint, chalk, clay and needed erasers), pens/pencils, compasses, rulers, lunch boxes, calculators, staplers, glue, glue sticks, safety scissors, graphing calculators, computers and tennis balls (many schools require them for the children's chairs).

How you can help:

• Share any or all of the aforementioned items with Community Solidarity by dropping them off at our Food Share locations.
• If you are an employee of an office supply store or a store that sells these items, and if you see these items regularly tossed out please suggest to the owner/manager that you share them with Community Solidarity.
• If you are an employee of an office supply store/(any store that sells these items) suggest to the owner/manager that you share some of these items with your Community Solidarity Food Share.
• Reach out to your school, place of worship, community organization or work workplace doing a school supply drive for Community Solidarity. You can then bring the items you collect to any of our Food Share locations.

It's one thing to share food, and it's another thing to share the means of growing food. At our Food Share locations, we try to share as many plants, seeds, and seedlings as we can. This is especially true when it comes to fruits and vegetable seedlings. We even have a program called the "Peach Tree Project" where we share baby fruit trees/seedlings and encourage folks to plant them in their backyards or neighborhoods.

What we are looking for in particular are easy to grow plants & trees that will provide a good amount of food to a local gardening resident. Things like peach trees, zucchinis, eggplants, spinach, cabbage, peppers, broccoli, string beans, tomatoes, onions, etc... are all fairly easy to grow in our local climate. We're also happy to take any plants that you may want to donate to us, including flowers and bouquets.

How you can help:

• Share any kind of seeds, plants or seedling with your local Food Share.
• If you have access to some pots and soil, you can grow some seeds into baby plants and bring them to your local Food Share (This is especially appreciated by everyone).
• If you work at a farm, garden supply shop or any store that throws out seeds, plants or seedlings encourage the owner/manager to share them with Community Solidarity.
• If you have a surplus from your garden share it with your local Food Share.
• If you would like to share gardening tools, or b ks on gardening bring them down to your local Food Share.

One of the ridiculous expenses in our society is medical care. It's unjust that a large portion of Americans go without it and we feel like that injustice must be addressed. That is why we encourage local doctors/dentists to organize their practices to provide regular free care to the community.

If you are a doctor and would like to help out, you can offer 1 day a month or week where you offer your services for free. We can advertise this free service at our local Food Shares so the community is aware of the benefits you can provide.

How you can help:

• If you are a doctor or dentist offer your services for free once a week or month.
• If you work at an organization that helps people find free medical care get in contact with us.

One of the biggest ways you can help with Community Solidarity is by participating. There are literally hundreds of ways you can help out depending on what you're interested in, your skills and your personal resources.

The easiest way to help out is to just come on down to your local Food Share and check it out. You can find a list of locations and times here. By just coming down to a Food Share you can get a feel for what it is that we do and where or how you'd like to participate. The following is a list of some general ways you can help out, they're ideas you can pursue but in no way are you limited to only these roles. If you have a skill that you think could benefit your community or if you'd like to be doing something different with us, let us know by emailing us at info[at]communitysolidarity[dot]org or call us at 631.223.4370.

How you can help:

• If you have a car, you can help with transporting food, clothing and/or other materials.
• Spread the word about us, we need more people knowing that we're out there.
• Organize a clothing collection from your friends, neighbors, schools, workplaces, etc.. and bring those clothes to your local Community Solidarity Food Share.
• If you have gardening skills, share them. Plant seedlings in pots and share them at a Community Solidarity Food Share.
• Help with community gardening.
• Talk to local nurseries and garden supply shops about sharing with Community Solidarity.
• If you speak Spanish, come to your local Food Share and help your Spanish-speaking neighbors find what they're looking for.
• If you read/write Spanish help us by translating our fliers and informational packets into Spanish.
• If there is not a Food Share in your community, help Community Solidarity by starting one. We'll help you start, organize and sustain your own local Food Share. For more information click here.
• If you are a musician come play at your local Food Share.
• If you are a vegan cooking, help prepare food with us.
• If you are an artist get in contact with us. We do art projects all the time.

People love flowers, they brighten everyone's days. That's why we try and share them as much as possible at out Food Shares. If you work at a florist, or store that throws out bouquets and flowers please contact us.

How you can help:

• If you are a florist who is throwing out flowers, share them with Community Solidarity.
• If you know a dumpster that is filled with flowers, pick them up and bring them to a Food Share.

We're always looking for toys for our Food Shares and especially around the holidays (November-December). We can share your new or second-hand toys with folks who will really love them, but we also invite you to come down to one of our Food Shares to share them yourself. This way you know they'll be enjoyed.

How you can help:

• Help organize a toy drive at your school, place of work, community group, amongst friends, etc... and then bring those toys to your local Community Solidarity Food Share. This is easy you can post an email to your friends, boss, whatever explaining the idea and how you encourage them to participate.
• If you work for a toy store, or just live down the block from one, contact them and ask if they'd be willing to share toys with the community. You can even suggest that it would be great press for them.
• Do you have your old toys? and would you want to share them? - just do it and come by a Food Share to do so.

Alternative forms of transportation are highly valuable. They mean an extra degree of freedom through transportation. A child could love a bike for the adventure it creates, an adult could love a bike because it gets them to work.

Freedom of movement and movement free of oppression via oil, environmental degradation or economic hindrance are fundamental beliefs of Community Solidarity. By sharing a bicycle, or other alternative forms of transport, at a Food Share you're helping an individual and our entire community.

How you can help:

• Do you have an old (working or not working) bike, or parts, that you're not using anymore? Bring it to your local Community Solidarity Food Share. If it's broken we'll do our best to try and fix it.
• If you're driving down the road and see a bicycle, pair of skates, scooter etc... being thrown out, pick it up and bring it to a Food Share.
• If you work for a bike shop or live near one, ask the manager if s/he would be will to share a bicycle/s with the community.
• If you are familiar with bicycle repair or have your own bike shop, share a few hours, or days each week and offer free repair services to folks that need it. We can advertise those services on this website.
• If you see bicycles or other alternative forms of transportation, on craigslist free section or freecycle.org, offer to pick them up and bring them to a Food Share.

Along with the tens of thousands of pounds of fresh organic groceries we share each week, we also prepare healthy delicious gourmet vegan meals for our Food Shares. We can always use extra cutlery supplies.

Items we're looking for are large pots, serving trays, serving utensils (large spoons, ladle, tongs), extra large Tupperware, a large transportable (50-100 cup) coffee maker, large water coolers (4+ gallons), food processors.

Some food items we're looking for are as follow: bulk food staple bags (25-50 pound bags of rice, beans, lentils, quinoa, etc...), spices, vegan canned goods (beans, soups, soup stocks, oats, fruits, etc..)

How you can help:

• Collect and share any of the above items with Community Solidarity, you can get them to us by contacting us at info[at]communitysolidarityl[dot]org or stopping by any of our Food Share locations.
• Talk to businesses about sharing any of these items with Community Solidarity.
• If you're moving, or someone else you know is moving, share/suggest to share extra vegan canned goods or cooking supplies with Community Solidarity.

There are many items we use at our Food Share throughout the week that we go through or wear down extremely quickly. These are also items that end up being are only expenses.

Table Supplies that we are always in need of are as follows, folding tables, reusable/disposable utensils (plants, bowls, cups, spoons, forks, knives, and sporks), paper bags, tarps, chalk boards/dry erase boards, banner materials, printing resources and people.

How you can help:

• Collect and share any of the above items with Community Solidarity, you can get them to us by contacting us at info[at]communitysolidarirty[dot]org or stopping by any of our Food Share locations.
• If you work in a cafeteria or restaurant share utensils with us.
• Bring your left over paper bags from food shopping to your local Food Share.
• If you work in sign making, help us get professional signs for free or low cost.
• If you have access to free printing help us by offering to print materials.