Free Food for All: Neighbors Growing, Cooking, and Sharing Without Stigma

Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?

In the Pacific Northwest, we encountered what seemed like a revolutionary idea — communities growing food, cooking and sharing it for free.

There were no labels or limits to entry. These didn’t feel like soup kitchens or food banks—these were community gathering spaces for a hot, dignified meal.

As someone who works in food and direct service, I contrasted this simple solution with the stigmatized and gatekeeper-intensive way most food benefits are administered: you need to fill out paperwork, demonstrate need and then receive coupons or a gift card to use for the purchase of eligible products.

While there’s some good ideas even in this over-regulated approach like Market Match: a program that gives you double your food stamp vouchers at Farmers Markets to be used on fresh fruits and vegetables, and food box prescriptions which provide insurance dollars for healthy whole food boxes, the clunkiness of this system means many who need and deserve the benefits don’t activate them. That being said, the federal administration is intensifying the barriers for able bodied citizens, which shows a narrow and uncaring view of who needs food and the benefits of safety nets and free community hubs. This all seems counterintuitive when you take into account that 90% of the $4 trillion spent on US healthcare goes towards treating preventable lifestyle diseases.

One wonders how much waste is created in oversight and benefits left on the table to offset the specter of abuse this rigamarole is meant to diffuse. On the Road to Resilience, we find free food flows amongst friends in third spaces and is a baseline of community good practice, giving and gratitude. 

The Open Table on Whidbey Island

A few minutes before the 1pm closing, my host on Whidbey Island whirled by the Methodist Church where an A-frame sandwich board announced “Free Lunch.” We plowed into the parking lot and ran in the building, evading the rush and arriving just in time for the last scrape of the soup pot for today’s meal.

The savory lunch was crafted with donated goods from local gardens and partially purchased supplies from a restaurant supply store. We got to interview the chef who told us the inspiration for this place was Dorothy Parker’s Catholic Worker and the Non-Violence Movement — that peacemaking is an everyday activity beyond civil disobedience.

In the room were retired teachers, seniors, a homeless person, a schizophrenic and a few friendly folk who just like to socialize and connect. We were shown around the room, which had several monumental artworks all in the style of Picasso’s Guernica, and equally representative of massacres and uprising including of the local native people and another of the current affairs in Palestine.

One doesn’t necessarily think of a soup kitchen as a place for intellectuals, philosophical debate and conviviality but this place felt like the hippie lunch annex of the Bohemian Club. The chef ladled out his philosophies along with the ginger broth, dispelling wisdom, like how kind makes kind. Some women came asking if they could use the space to host a knitting event and then later offered to clean the carpet of the oversized room. The group also had been helping contribute to a bake sale for Palestine through a roadside market they baked cookies for.

Growing for Food Banks in Port Townsend​

When the call went out in Jefferson County for nutrient-dense fresh foods for food banks, local gardeners answered the call. There are now around a dozen gardens producing nearly 20,000 pounds of food and over 1,000 eggs per year.

The gardeners help feed people while helping themselves, learning, socializing and upskilling while they work in communal food growing. The group is as clever as they are kind: innovating ways to grow and deliver produce using electric bikes, and forming the Wild Rovers, who support school gardens in the summer.

Cheer them on as they quietly chant their mantra, “We grow. We gather. We give.”

The Kitchen at Joe King Park on Hornby Island

Is it something about Island folk that they care about each other a little more than those of us on main land?

The Hornby Island Education Society organizes a free lunch three times a week at Joe King Ball Park, an athletic league facility built by members of the community. That seems to be the ethos on Hornby Island, by the community and for the community. This program calls out to many types of people, those with disabilities, seniors and even singles and tradespeople. It positions itself as open to anyone who needs help finding nourishment. During COVID, they also started a hot meal delivery program which continues to this day. Furthermore, the Comox Valley Food Bank operates a satellite food distribution at the same location so folks can shop a shipping container of fresh and shelf stable foods that they bring home for later. Produce at both the food bank and the Kitchen lunch program are partially grown on the island by the community at a gorgeous co-managed Hornby Island Community Garden.

These free lunch programs tied to local gardens beautifully connect locally grown, seasonal produce—literally the best food you can get, with those who need it most. Often grown, cooked and served by the same community members who use the service or lovingly provide it for their friends and neighbors. As one lithograph hanging in the Free Lunch on Whidbey Island room says, “If you have more than enough, build a longer table.”

• Invite Us
  
• Follow Along 
  
• Support Our Trip

Since Summer 2025, we've been exploring the Road to Resilience, a rolling activation, learning and sharing about how communities prepare for and protect against economic shifts and climate shocks by strengthening local health, social life, and interdependence.

​Informed by the mutual aid movement in Appalachia in the wake of Hurricane Helene and our work with emerging food systems, we’re spotlighting small-scale, culturally inclusive solutions that build neighborhood dynamism from the ground up.

It’s about equipping communities to adapt, thrive, and shape their own futures.