Community food production
Growing food locally and in a decentralized way increases food security. Community and collective gardens, town orchards, and other shared food production can produce fresh abundant food for community meals and households.
Support your local community garden and look for ways to make it more accessible and successful.
If there isn’t a community garden in your area, consider starting one!
Integrate community garden produce into regular community meals, where you can discuss food justice and food access in disasters.
Identify people with knowledge to preserve growing season abundance for winter distribution and ways to share that knowledge.
Directory of local farmers and producers
Collaborate with farmers through on-going community food justice projects that help address food insecurity and compensate farmers fairly. Consider new farmers and those from disadvantaged identities who likely want to serve diverse populations.
Identify
Community meals and food distribution
If your community doesn’t already offer free meals, reach out to communities that do so to learn their tricks. Often these can be found at churches, senior centers, community centers, parks. The main components you need are: food, cooks, place to offer the meal, volunteers to distribute the food.
Pick a place for food distribution that is convenient and accessible for most people.
Offer meals on a consistent day/time.
Try to get food donated from local grocery stores or farmers.
Consider ways to make meals available to people at home through delivery and distribution channels.
Identify people who would benefit from food delivery.
Recruit volunteers via social media or community networks to drop food off
Hygiene: Public Showers
Consider the needs of your community and if portable/solar trailers or shower stalls would help meet an ongoing need if no public or low-cost shower access is available.
Ridesharing and carpooling
Building and strengthening transportation systems enables people to meet their own needs and become more connected to community. During a crisis having relationships built between carpooling neighbors will create more opportunities for community members to check up on each other.
Build, utilize, and strengthen existing mechanisms for low-cost shared transportation - Example:
Create community-run and specific carpooling initiatives, like:
organizing community events / meals to advertise & create a carpooling framework
designating carpool areas
Promoting at library, community stores, on Front Porch Forum, etc
Creating and disseminating maps (on and offline) of nearest transportation, trails, and routes - Example: Trails maintained by snowmobile clubs such as
Network of community physical and mental health workers
Offer free, low-cost or sliding scale sessions as a part of their practice
Offer group sessions
Show up near disaster sites to offer emotional support and counseling
Examples:
Consider setting up a recurring community health clinic day with local practitioners and partner with your local Department of Health office
If individuals have a primary care provider, it is important to connect them to that same provider for continuity of care. Add community health centers and other similar resources/sites to your directory.
For those still needing assistance accessing in clinic healthcare services, connect individuals with a
If individuals need help applying to health insurance, adjusting information due to disaster (i.e. income) they can connect with a
Network of herbal support
Connect local herbalists/apothecaries with long term and emergency resilience planning efforts, and find ways to help them offer free, low-cost or sliding scale services for community members.
Work to develop a ready and rotating stock of herbal medicinals as part of the first aid supplies.
Offer regular community activities and services where herbal support is available. - Example:
Printed toolkit, 2025 edition, pages 40 to 41.