Support for Long Island Food Not Bombs is Urgently Needed, Please Help!

To our supporters & friends,

We urgently need your support; we need it right now! Please read on and please consider making a monetary donation this week! You can do so by calling 631.223.4370, dropping off monetary donations at any of our food shares or by contacting any of the volunteers listed at the bottom of this email.

What’s Happened:

In less than four years we’ve grown into an organization operating food shares in five locations spreading across Nassau, Suffolk & Kings counties. We share weekly groceries with thousands of local families. We share necessities like school supplies, clothing, books, toys, toiletries, furniture, seeds, plants, flowers and hope.

Long Island Food Not Bombs gets people on their feet. It takes some pressure off single parents working two jobs. It removes the terrible choices facing many local senior citizens -- the choice of paying for food or for their homes. It organizes neighborhoods for their own benefit. Ours is a growing community that plants gardens, empowers children, fights racism, breaks sexism and unites people of all creeds and beliefs.

On top of all that, Long Island Food Not Bombs is the largest Food Not Bombs chapter in the world! We’re also the largest single organization that’s on the ground sharing food in Nassau & Suffolk counties.

Long Island Food Not Bombs is a community organization that shares necessities with anyone. We believe in solidarity with our neighbors, we believe that food is a right and that poverty is a form of violence on par with war.

In short, our food shares are tools for the benefit of communities across Long Island.

Our problem is that as we grow we need more tools. Because we’re sharing groceries with thousands of people, and want to expand, we need more food. Because we’re working directly with the youth, we want to create afterschool programs. Because we’re working with people who have no access to medical care, we want to organize free medical services. Because there are few open spaces, especially for the youth, we want to create a community space.

So, how as a community do we meet these needs?

What’s Happening:

Last week Long Island Food Not Bombs meet to discuss the future of our efforts and an enormous consensus was reached. In order to keep growing we need to create a sister organization, a nonprofit.

1. This nonprofit will be based in our own principles of community direct action.

2. It will be an organization that will work along with Long Island Food Not Bombs to create social benefits much greater than any of our current efforts.

3. It will be designed to help transform community solidarity on Long Island into a movement supporting the basic principles that food, shelter, medical care, education and housing are human rights and must be recognized as so.

We’re calling this new nonprofit, “Community Solidarity”, and if the past four years of Long Island Food Not Bombs has been step #1, its creation will usher in step #2.

This is no easy task. The process of creating a nonprofit is extremely difficult and extremely costly. The application fees alone are thousands of dollars! In addition, we’re also acting under a deadline. Basically, this is something we need to achieve now, and we need your help to do so.

How you can help (please donate!):

1. Donating Money.

We need to raise $3000 in the next few weeks if this is to work and we need your help to make that happen. Please consider donating anything you can $5, $25, $50, $100, $1,000, $10,000. You can personally drop off cash donations at our Hempstead, Huntington and Farmingville food shares. We can also pick up donations (just call the hotline 631.223.4370 or email us at LongIslandFoodNotBombs [at] gmail [dot] com).

In addition, please consider forwarding this email to your friends, family & coworkers. Consider sharing with them your experiences with Long Island Food Not Bombs and explain how their donation is truly an investment in the community. We’d also greatly appreciate it if you could also forward this information on facebook, twitter, myspace, etc…

2. We need lawyers, accountants or anyone with experience in creating a nonprofit.

If you are a lawyer, accountant or have experience creating a nonprofit please consider volunteering your time as a consultant. We need legal advice in regards to submitting the dozens of forms needed to become a nonprofit and we need accounting advice in working with the IRS and budgeting. If you have these invaluable skills or know someone who does please contact us (contact information is at the bottom of this email).

3. As a volunteer.

We always need more volunteers either to help distribute at our food shares or as drivers for food pickups. Again, if you’re interested please contact us.

***More on how you can get money to us (Volunteer Donation Collectors!)***

1. Call our hotline (631.223.4370) and we can arrange to pick up monetary donations from your home, work or other convenient location.

2. Stop by our Hempstead, Huntington or Farmingville food shares and inform a volunteer that you’re interested in giving a monetary donation.

3. Contact of the following LIFNB volunteers, JonSTeps, Vincent Cocca, Jonathan Grindell, Alex Reisner, Julia Hernandez.

Thank you for your time, donations & solidarity,
JonSTeps & Long Island Food Not Bombs

Contact Information:

Email: LongIslandFoodNotBombs [at] gmail [dot] com
Phone: 631.223.4370
Newsletter: www.lifnb.com/newsletter
Twitter: www.twitter.com/LongIslandFNB