Help Slow Food Seacoast build community and create a more sustainable food system! Here are some ways to get involved.

Stay in touch.

Join our Email List (use the form in the right sidebar) to receive our monthly newsletter with information about potlucks, events, and volunteer opportunities related to Slow Food in our region. To receive more frequent and more timely information, subscribe to our Blog. Check out our Contact Us page for even more ways to to keep keep up to date on happenings in the local food scene.

Pull up a chair.

The best way to be “slow” and meet people interested in good food is to join us for a potluck. See About Our Potlucks for basic information. If you don’t already receive our e-newsletter, check the Events page to find out when and where the next one will be.

Make it happen.

Whatever you like to do best, there’s a way for you to contribute. Slow Food runs on your enthusiasm and interest: If you have an idea for a workshop, event, or project you’d like to lead, please share it with the group. Attend our next potluck, or e-mail Slow Food Seacoast with “I Have An Idea” in the subject line.

Volunteer!

Slow Food Seacoast is a nonprofit volunteer organization. Throughout the year, many volunteer opportunities (from outreach to event planning and event staff) arise to help further the Slow Food mission. Volunteer opportunities are announced at potlucks, in the e-newsletter, and on this page.

Amy Pollard, Slow Food Seacoast’s Outreach Coordinator, invites you to volunteer with her at our various tabling opportunities. What does this involve, you ask? “Tabling” (handing out literature and talking to people about Slow Food and local food options) at events is the most important way we make contact with potential members and supporters. As a volunteer, you will talk with people and hand out literature—including the very popular Seacoast Harvest: A Local Food Guide. This information

• Helps educate people about the importance and delight of eating local food
• Presents ideas for supporting our local farmers
• Provides information about our various upcoming events and our organization in general
• Offers tips on eating seasonally as well as ways to prepare and preserve foods at their peak freshness

Tabling is an easy and fun way to get to know people and and also to learn from them. The events we attend have people who are truly “hungry” for this kind of information, so our interactions are fun and exciting.

Current Volunteer Opportunities

• The Barrington Natural Heritage and Agriculture Fair will be held on August 28 and 29. Amy would love to have some volunteers to join her (and give her some break time) at the Slow Food Seacoast table during the two-day event; if you’d like to talk to fairgoers about good, clean, and fair food, please e-mail Slow Food Seacoast with “I Want to Volunteer” in the subject line. In addition, the organizers need volunteers to help before and during the fair (setup, parking) and afterward (cleanup). If you would like to help put on a great local event, contact Heather Warren.
• Tabling at the Portsmouth Farmers’ Market on Saturdays, August 21 and September 25: Duties entail co-running (with Amy Pollard) the information booth, the focus of which is community outreach: a welcoming presence, education, and awareness of the many ways to participate and benefit from the local food movement in the Seacoast area. Information from Slow Food and many of the local food groups will be available for distribution. The market runs 8 am–1 pm, and many shifts available for any time during that period. Name your time!
• The Heirloom Harvest Barn Dinner will take place on September 19. The organizers request volunteers for several shifts over two days: Saturday, Sept. 18 (afternoon barn clean-up followed by a pizza party), and Sunday, Sept 19 (morning barn setup, afternoon/evening greet and serve dinner, and evening cleanup) and offer a chef-prepared dinner as a thank-you after the evening’s chores are done. Contact: Erin Ehlers.
• The 2nd Annual NH Fish & Lobster Festival (“Fishtival”) will be held on September 25 … the Fall Harvest Festival at Strawbery Banke will be on October 9 … and the Slow Food Seacoast 50-mile Thanksgiving Celebration will be on November 6! Details on how you can support or represent Slow Food at these eventswill be available soon! (Did you know that in 2009, Slow Food Seacoast gave out information to a crowd of more than 4,000 people at the first ever Portsmouth Fishtival? That’s a lotta people!)
• To volunteer for Slow Food events (just an hour, or more if you can), please e-mail Slow Food Seacoast with “I Want to Volunteer” in the subject line. Thanks!