Restock: August 2025

Welcome to the Restock!

One Year

LFFC went up in pieces during July and August, 2024, but was first stocked over Labor Day weekend; I count September 1st as its first “real” day, as getting everything stocked took a bit of time. So we’ve been here for a year! It’s not quite correct to say “I never imagined we’d make it a year” (that’s what the concrete pours were for), but it’s certainly true that while our mission has stayed focused—we’re here to help the people in this neighborhood with nonfood needs, art, and zines—our area of effect has been able to broaden slightly.

We’ve gained friends from Seattle Mask Bloc, Seattle Community Fridge, Seattle Community Network, Futel, and the lovely folks at WA OEND and King County Public Health. We’ve met people of all ages, backgrounds, stories, and levels of need who’ve stopped by LFFC for supplies, art (including sharing their own art!), zines, or even just to see what on earth it was. We became a major condom distributor to area teenagers after school ended for the summer. Remarkably, we’ve not had a single negative comment about LFFC from neighbors in an entire year, and at this point we’re a neighborhood institution. :-)

Thanks so much to everyone who has stopped by, donated, asked questions, offered advice, or come to get things. We couldn’t have asked for a better neighborhood to install a thing in.

Updates and Changes

Early this month, aided by some friends with doctorates, strong backs, and a comedic sense of three-dimensional geometry, we hoisted the new roof onto LFFC’s pillars. (The doctorates were optional for this purpose, but they came with the friends.) It’s substantially larger, which will keep rain off people attempting to visit LFFC (the old one had a slight habit of keeping rain off LFFC itself, only to drop it down the backs of visitors). Later in the month, we removed the old cabinets and installed a single new one, custom-built for the space. Rather than splitting up different categories of stuff, the new cabinet lets us use the total available volume of LFFC more efficiently and will be more rain- and mold-resistant. We’ve also added real gutters and better lighting and cord management

The old cabinets came from Ballard Reuse; they were guitar display cases originally used by Dusty Strings. Sadly, MDF and veneers didn’t fare well against a Seattle winter. The new cabinet is also from Ballard Reuse in a sense; the boards were old cedar barn wood, and the doors were reclaimed leaded glass windows from one of the Victorian mansions around Seattle. (Yes, we did the lead remediation on the also-lead paint; everything is safely sealed behind latex now.) Some glue, some screws, new shelves, and a paint color chosen by a three-year-old later (always let kids choose paint colors for your house; the colors are more fun), and the result’s new photo is on our About page!

The other major change has been electronic. In May, at the request of a visitor, we started looking into how to provide free WiFi at LFFC. This month, we added WiFi and moved the phone electronics (the things that provide a phone line to the phone) to a new home. This created the first instance of what we’re calling a Connections node, in partnership with both Futel (phone service) and Seattle Community Network (the Internet service backing the WiFi). We’re building many more Connections nodes, and installed the second one at a Seattle Community Fridge location in south Seattle; we hope to expand to the other seven SCF locations soon!

Monthly Usage

This month, we had thirteen outgoing completed calls made from the Futel phone.

This month, we distributed:

• 206 pairs of thermal socks
• 1060 Band-Aids
• 58 CoBan rolls
• 31 ABD gauze pads, and 44 non-adherent pads
• 429 nitrile gloves
• 82 packets of Vaseline
• 69 sunscreen packets
• 160 masks (N95 and KF94)
• 104 doses of ibuprofen
• 58 pairs of earplugs
• 33 ponchos
• 42 pencils
• 49 bars of soap
• 166 toothbrushes
• 104 tubes of toothpaste
• 141 tampons
• 124 menstrual pads (across all sizes)
• 107 condoms, 12 female condoms, and 97 lubricant packets
• 36 boxes (72 doses) of naloxone

Our COGGA for this month is $518.53, not including naloxone, condoms, or lubricants (all of which are provided by outside groups at no cost to us).

We received donations this month from Harley LaRoux and Andrew Smart, as well as one from an anonymous donor.

Donations this month came from Tammy Miller, Harley LaRoux, Andrew Smart, and multiple anonymous donors. Thank you all so much!

Annual Totals

Here’s what we’ve distributed in one year:

• 2,306 pairs of socks
• 9,900 Band-Aids
• 456 CoBan rolls
• 426 ABD gauze pads, and 242 non-adherent pads (though we started distributing the latter only a few months ago)
• 4,396 nitrile gloves
• 413 packets of Vaseline (another add only a few months ago)
• 1,819 masks (N95 and KF94)
• 1,098 doses of ibuprofen
• 542 pairs of earplugs
• 725 ponchos
• 532 pencils
• 515 bars of soap
• 1,176 toothbrushes
• 791 tubes of toothpaste
• 1,115 tampons
• 728 menstrual pads (across all sizes)
• 1,932 condoms, 39 female condoms, and 1,472 lubricant packets
• 318 boxes (636 doses) of naloxone
• 48 tubes and 163 packets of sunscreen (seasonal)
• 794 pairs of warm gloves (seasonal)
• 669 warm hats (seasonal)
• 1,440 handwarmers (seasonal)

The total COGGA is $9,518.42. We’ve had two hundred and fifty total connected outbound calls on our Futel phone this past year!

Annual Total Donations

We have been touched that people feel so strongly about LFFC that they want to donate money to help support it. Over the last twelve months, we’ve received a total of $2,428.69 in donations from:

• Harley LaRoux
• Rick Morck
• Bev Ross
• Tammy Miller
• Andrew Smart

And quite a few donors who have chosen not to be acknowledged publicly. Thank you all so much!

Conclusion

That’s it for this month’s Restock! If there’s more information you’d like to know, please feel free to use our Suggestions Form or email us at info@lffc.us.