About Free the Food / Sloppy Seconds Free Food Kitchen

Hello All! You will find all the general information about Sloppy 2nds below. However, a natural disaster situation has presented itself in the Mid-west section of the United States that demands our urgent attention so we have included this information first. Please scroll down if you are looking for general info.

We have a caravan headed to the Chicago area to assist with disaster relief for the families and indivuduals affected by the recent flooding in the Mid-west part of the country, particularly the Chicago area. We will be proving dry clothing and socks, food and assistance carrying destroyed debris from people's homes and busiensses and assisting with anything else that is necessary in this area to help the city recover from this natural disaster. If you have anything you would like to donate or if you know a family or individual in need of assistance, please do not hesistate to call us at 202.302.8842 or send an email to info@freethefood.org. We are here to help! 

We are a vegetarian grassroots collective moving to end hunger across America.

In 2009 a 1988 chevy school bus was purchased for 500$ from a church. DOROTHY then enabled Second Chances d.b.a. Sloppy Seconds Free Food Kitchen to be born.
It started out as a very small group providing food to main circle at Rainbow Gatherings for sometimes up to 10,000 people and has since grown into an Association if over 300 participating volunteers and/or members across the United States.

SSFFK has now expanded the services we provide to those needing food boxes, clothing and hygeine items across the United States with our main focus being in middle Tennessee right now, specifically Bedford County and the surrounding areas.

We are a close-knit group of individuals who have, over the years, put in endless hours of work and after a lot of paperwork and dedication from our crew we have now become an official non-profit organization under section 501(c)3 of the IRS code. Fully legit and able to accept tax deductible donations.

All of our efforts have not been easy and we always need volunteers to continue filling bellies all across the country. We are also opening food pantries and drop-in centers on "free" land throughout the U.S. if u need more info please contact us at 202.302.8842 or info@freethefood.org. You can also join our community on the discussions page to connect with others in your area who have like minded goals or ask us questions and make comments as you please.

We are a Non Government Organization,  a social organization actively working to educate people on healthy and self sustainable eating and living and also helping to rehabilitate homeless and youth and providing necessary job skills and references in order to find employment if someone desires. We also provide a pelethera of other services including free car repairs for those in need and local farming support.

PLEASE dont hesitate to contact us if you would like more information and feel free to check out our blog as it will be updated with photos and stories about the long road to ending hunger and suffering in the United States. .

We have recently teamed up with another organization who is actively growing organic food and building a collective community riight here in our backyard in Middle Tennessee, in Lafayette TN. For more information on them please visit the link on our "Contact" page of this site.

UPDATE: We were recently given the opportunity to begin operating an immobile food pantry/soup kitchen in Shelvyville TN. We have a possible donor of an 8,000 square foot restaurant with FULL KITCHEN available for our use. We need help locating grants and funding to make sure we can cover our expenses for the next year or so, as far as rent and utilities. We will probably have a couple of months free of charge, to get our bearings - but after that we will need to keep the grants coming in. We get to open a Food Bank now! One of our specialties is going to be catering to special diets such as vegetarians and vegans, diabetics, people with gluten allergies and other special dietary needs. We will make sure the food boxes provided will cater to their special diets.

We will also hold workshops at our location to educate people on how to draw up a shopping list which will provide food for their entire family for LONGER. There will also be an opportunity for musical entities to play music because there is a full stage in this building, enabling children and youth to have a venue to express their talents, as well as an opportunity for us to conduct fundraising events.

Another specialty of SSFFK is we will not only provide Gap Assistance for families unable to afford their living expenses, but we will also provide automobile repairs - free of charge - to families with no other means of transportation and who would greatly benefit from these services to provide their children rides to school, and so they may drive themselves to work.

We will also offer invaluble job experience references, by hiring homeless and former homeless persons and those on welfare. In this way we are different from most non-profit food banks because we are going to encourage a self-sustaining lifestyle, instead of a "get your food box and go" scenario. We will also offer weekly food boxes, to keep in contact with our clients much more often and make sure we are working together to create a plan for each individual and family to, eventually, not NEED our services anymore.

Much more to come! Please keep coming back for updates!

Current Wishlist:

"new" 1988 Chevrolet 454 Industrial Intake Manifold and Headers. We are removing the "smog reducer" system from Dorothy because we have lost compression due to a huge vacuum leak in this ridiculously engineered system.

1 Large Water Tank (250+ Gallons or more)

Empty Kegs - as many as we can find

Rope - lots and any kind you have available

Restaraunt grade food shelving units: ideally we need 4 to 6 of these for the bus. We need a better way of storing dry goods on our bus, that is up to health code standards

Cork Flooring, any color, shape, style that you might have.

Restaurant grade food containers

Information on any available grants we would be elibigle to apply for to pay our rent at our new food pantry/soup kitchen.

a "fold-up" serving table to serve on site, in inner city areas.

Money - as always, this is necessary to purchase food from Second Harvest. The food they provide us is extremely unexpensive, but costs money nonetheless.

Also, any monetary donations will now be going towards paying rent, utility, maintenance and insurance costs to operate an immobile food pantry and soup kitchen here in Shelbyville, TN, with a fully operating, up to code kitchen and seating area!

You can easily donate on our website by clicking the paypal button on our site. All donations go directly into a Sloppy Seconds Nonprofit Account, and are completely tax deductible. Any donation over 250$ can be written off on your taxes completely. Anything under that can still be used on your schedule A, under Charitible Contributions.