Food: Street Plan

Individual households must store enough food to enable people to survive for a minimum of four weeks. This is accomplished largely through implementing the Ready Your Street program.

Some of the food can come from household or neighbor-shared gardens that produce foods in the spring, summer, or fall that may be canned, frozen, or dried for consumption at any time of the year.

If your community is urban, residents can garden empty lots or create patio or balcony gardens.

The stored food and ongoing garden yields will help sustain the residents of a street during a disaster when outside help might not show up for weeks or longer.

To launch your Food Plan at the street level, implement the following steps:

Step 1. Gather an emergency food supply for your household. Include enough food for everyone—including pets, livestock, and even potential human visitors—for at least 30 days. Read more here.

Step 2. Store your emergency food supply in a cool, dry place where it is unlikely to get damaged.

Step 3. If possible, start a garden in your yard or on your patio or balcony. Alternatively, work a P-patch or start a street garden for you and your neighbors to share. Read more here.

Step 4. Launch the Ready Your Street program on your street and make sure you and your neighbors have household emergency food supplies.

Step 5. Designate a day every year on which everyone on your Street checks their emergency food supplies for soon-to-expire food. Together, take the soon-to-expire food to your local food pantry or use it for a potluck for you and your neighbors.

Pro-Tip. Use a permanent black marker to write in large numbers on each food item its expiration date. This will make it much easier to go through the supply later to check for soon-to-expire food.