Night Market Fund

The Night Market Fund raises money to support food rescue and resiliency in the model of the Davis Night Market. Funds go to operational support such as the purchase of portioning boxes and sanitizer and the provisioning of bike carts and lights. Funds primarily support the 5-nights-per-week of the existing Davis Night Market, but may also be used to expand the Night Market into Sacramento. 

The Davis Night Market is a truly unique and experimental project that works like magic. It's a radically inclusive crew of volunteers who bike around to restaurants, groceries, and bakeries at night and pick-up food that would otherwise go to the dumpster. Then they throw a beautifully illuminated party, and commumity safe-space food sharing event in Central Park starting at 9pm where food is distributed free to anyone who wants it. Because the event becomes a magnet for every kind of society, volunteers go to pains to host a fun, community bonding experience with lights and music. Sometimes there are events like star gazing or bands. In sum, the Night Market is an extraordinary cultural event that welcomed and celebrates folks across all social strata as equals access collaborators in the project of building a more sustainable, equitable, and fun world. 

Within the larger context of food security, Night Market plays an important set of roles that complement the current charity-based model of free food distribution. First, the amount of food collected is usually too small to be of interest to food-banks and other larger donation systems, so Night Market provides an important intermediate system in the overall effort to prevent food waste (and of course no amount of food is too small when you're a hungry person). Second, the amount of food collected by Night Market is usually too small to be if interest to food banks but not always: Night Market often becomes a conduit for larger food donations which can then be passed on to bigger orgs but would otherwise go to waste. Thirdly, Night Market's focus on destigmatizing free food distribution is  critically outside of the main stream: since guests do not have to have any confirmed status or belong to any particular demographic or system or identify themselves in any way, the market provides support for marginalized and transient folks who might otherwise avoid larger institutional support. Fourthly, because Night Market maintains such a broad, demographic appeal both to guests and volunteers (we view them as a continuum) it fosters all manner of complementary support systems, social events, friendships, etc, such are the stuff of a proper social support network.

Night Market has historically required relatively little money to operate. Volunteers have donated money for boxes, lights, flat-tire repair and assorted everything. But as Night Market has grown from 1 to 5 nights, deeper needs and requirements have emerged. The cost of a yearly health permit, potential insurance costs, and a general sense of financial stability and security have emerged as important to sustained operations. As well the idea of expansion to bigger markets where there are deeper resources of potential food waste to rescue has folks talking about how to fund and execute expansion. 

For these reasons the ECO non-profit has been working closely with the Night Market to develop a model for ongoing financial, technical, and administrative support. We have built and funded a bank account, built a technical platform for counting food and logistical support. We have worked with Yolo Conflict Resolution to develop a strategy for handling conflict emerging from within and without (a critical question when operating a free food party and safe space in the park at night). We have solicited pro-bono legal support to work out the details and best practices for an ongoing funding support model and both Davis Night Market and future implementations of Night Market beyond.

Now we are asking for support from the fundraising community for the beautiful Night Market whose enthusiastic founders rallied the original volunteers with a few memorable mottos: 

eat your heart out! 

it's all about the lights! 

no one goes to bed hungry!