Volunteering

Freedom / Pollution and Depletion / Volunteering

How I have responded to September 11: Service

Five years ago, I watched the firefighters across the street from my apartment building muster. As I recorded my podcast a few minutes later, I couldn't stop the tears from coming. This year I'm looking forward more, considering my actions that affect others. Response 1/3: Serving as an auxiliary This morning, I went to the Sixth Precinct, a few blocks down Tenth Street, and mustered with police officers as an auxiliary. From formation, when it was my turn, I read the name of one of the officers from the precinct who died 25 years ago today. Relatives of those officers attended, as they do every year. At the refreshments afterward, donated by a local market, the relatives were in good spirits. As solemn as the…

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September 11, 2026

Stories / Volunteering

Volunteer Discipline

The rule on volunteering with the group I volunteer with is that when you sign up for a shift, you're responsible to clear all the food the place is donating that day. You might recall I pick up overstock food from stores that would otherwise throw it away. We bring it to places that distribute it to hungry and poor people. I used to deliver it to an outdoor community fridge in Chelsea, but you know how people are with free stuff. They argue over it, drop it on the ground and leave it, and otherwise behave in ways that prompt neighbors to complain. After a while, the church hosting the outdoor fridge had to stop hosting it. Still a community of people who used…

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August 11, 2026

Relationships / Volunteering

Sunday’s donations reveal how much stuff people throw away, often brand new

On Sunday a group called the Freegans held one of their "Free markets" where anyone can bring anything they want and take anything they want for free. They hold it in the basement of a church on Washington Square Park. When I pick up litter, I find lots of stuff that people discard, often brand new. The pictures and video below show what I donated. I guess you could include it as one of my volunteer activities, but it doesn't take extra time. Many things still have tags on them, yet people still threw them away. I asked people there to wait to take things until I could take pictures, but it was hard to hold them back so I only took four quick pictures.…

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July 28, 2026

Habits / Hands on Practical Experience / Pollution and Depletion / Volunteering

Secret video of Beth picking up litter goes viral in Mexico

The background: Longtime podcast listeners may remember episode 754: (Aunt) Trish Ellis and (Niece) Evelyn Wallace, part 1: Not Even Cancer Holds Her Back. We mentioned Beth, Evelyn's mom and Trish's sister. All three of them took the workshop. Beth has been picking up litter ever since. She lives in Mérida, Mexico, where she organizes others to pick up litter too. They created a web page: Yo ❤ Mérida limpia. ¿Y tú?, which states their mission and vision: Mission: To promote the care, cleanliness, and respect for Mérida's public spaces through community actions that strengthen environmental awareness, a sense of belonging, and citizen participation. Vision: To build a Mérida where every person takes pride in caring for their surroundings, making cleanliness and respect for nature part…

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July 14, 2026

Volunteering

Volunteering as meditation

The other day my volunteer shift to deliver food gave me a double challenge. The amount of food that would have been thrown away required two trips and it was raining and cold. Then last night, the volunteer organizer said there was a big load of milk close to the expiration date and asked if anyone could do an extra shift. No one else could do it and I could, so this morning I did another double load. Liquids are the most dense, so the load was particularly heavy. (This picture is from another shift. I don't take pictures every time I deliver so reuse pictures from old posts stored in Wordpress.) Saturday's cold and rain would have made me feel miserable if I were…

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April 29, 2026

Doof / Habits / Volunteering

First plogging and barefoot run of 2026

Longtime readers know I switched from running to plogging, which led to a bunch of media doing stories on me. I can't help sharing the stories. The earliest I found was 2018: “17 Creative Weekend Routines For a Happier, More Successful Week,” including plogging about a story on me in Thrive Global in 2018 120: Rules for plogging in New York City a podcast episode I did in 2019 I’m famous for plogging! See me pick up litter while I run on local news. Fox did a story on my in January 2019 I plogged on TV with the Doctor and the Diva A talk show recorded me plogging and invited me in to talk about it in September 2019 Inspired to my first run…

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April 11, 2026

Nonjudgment / Volunteering

Reader responses from “Help restore my shaken confidence in people from Christmas Eve day”

On December 25, 2025, I wrote a post Help restore my shaken confidence in people from Christmas Eve day that recounted a troubling experience I had delivering food to a community fridge. I wrote about how after spending a lot of time and energy on a holiday, a group of people showed tons of aggression and zero gratitude pushing everyone out of the way to get all the food they could for themselves. In the US in 2025, it felt risky to specify that they were elderly Chinese women, but they were. People there who weren't elderly Chinese women didn't get a chance. They were pushed out. One had a tug of war with me over food I didn't intend to distribute. She grabbed it…

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March 30, 2026

Inc.com / Relationships / Volunteering

Leslie Jones and the Daily Show getting votes for Trump

When Donald Trump was first elected President ten years ago, since I didn't know many Trump voters, I posted in the column I wrote then with Inc.com, "If You Voted for Trump, Let's Meet." The post led to several conversations with Trump voters across the US. I found the conversations informative and lovely. How could people who promoted compassion and tolerance so much be so mean? One comment that one Trump voter said stuck with me. She lived in San Francisco, where nearly everyone she knew disliked Trump. Many despised him. She told me she had to hide her voting choice out of fear of social repercussions. Yet all these people who attacked Trump voters with disdain claimed to value compassion and tolerance. Her comment:…

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March 11, 2026

Habits / Volunteering

Volunteering is like a holiday

I described my volunteering to some friends. One remarked how over the holidays she wanted to volunteer so went to some pages that catalogued volunteer opportunities but they were all filled. People volunteering around holidays is like people going to gyms after new years resolutions: after the holiday, it empties again. People return to social media and watching TV over the gym and volunteering. This time I looked at it differently. We love being generous and helping people. Somehow we do so during holidays more, but our hearts, minds, and souls benefit from helping others all the time, certainly more than from scrolling and getting outraged from social media. Even though I volunteer fewer hours per week than many Americans spend on screens per day,…

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February 9, 2026

Doof / Habits / Hands on Practical Experience / Volunteering

Wow, some hard work volunteering in the cold yesterday and today.

I try not to complain about heavy work, especially since the physical labor I do is trivial compared to people who work for a living and I just finished One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, though I'm talking about volunteering, not work for pay. Still, over the past few days a few things conspired to make volunteering with delivering surplus food to give away to people who can use it. A few people who volunteer are out of town It's cold! ... below 20F (-7C) One place had about 25 gallons of milk nearing their expiration date so had to be delivered this morning It also had several cases of soda. The upshot: I made three deliveries nearing my heaviest loads. Liquids are…

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January 21, 2026

Habits / Nonjudgment / Stories / Volunteering

Help restore my shaken confidence in people from Christmas Eve day

Regular readers know I volunteer once or twice a week to deliver food from stores that were going to throw it away to community fridges, shelters, and other places for people to get it for free. I wasn't scheduled to volunteer yesterday (Christmas Eve day), but the person who was reported so much overstock that we needed three people to clear it all. Not many other volunteers were around so I was one of them. Here's the load I picked up: So far so good. For better or worse, the usual place I deliver to had this sign on its door: Darn! Now I had to find a place to donate around 3pm on Christmas Eve day, pulling a big load of food. You can't…

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December 25, 2025

Fitness / Volunteering

Seeing the world’s fastest runners up close, volunteering at the New York City Marathon

I've run in six marathons and watched several others, but never before volunteered until Sunday. Wow! It was almost unfair the access. I was right in the middle of Columbus Circle where the runners make their final turn back into Central Park before the several hundred yards to the finish Check out the videos below to see the top finishers. The runners may go past too fast to see in the videos, but they pass maybe a meter from me and I could see the expressions on their faces. Even being in the race, I can't see the determination, grit, and yet relaxation in the faces of people reaching the pinnacle of human achievement. Four big observations: One: The difference in level of relaxation combined…

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November 5, 2025

Nature / Visualization / Volunteering

A video tour of Drew Gardens, fall 2025

Today I posted about My fifth annual cooking workshop at Drew Gardens: pictures and video. I also made these two videos to show off Drew Gardens. I don't think I posted a walk-through before. Anyone wondering how much they can change a neighborhood will love these videos. For context, here is what Drew Gardens looked like before, barren and strewn with garbage. After looking at it, watch the videos. The first video is about three and a half minutes of me giving a more full tour. I start at the southern end, which abuts the Cross Bronx Expressway. You'd think that proximity would ruin a garden, and it probably did when all the land you'll see was bare of foliage and scattered with used tires…

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October 27, 2025

Doof / Education / Nature / Volunteering

My fifth annual cooking workshop at Drew Gardens: pictures and video

I love Drew Gardens' space and community. Every year I lead a workshop on cooking, though less now about low-cost, low-waste cooking. Now I focus on helping them create a food coop there. The city has some programs I consider "push," where they try to supply fresh, local produce to the community. Having grown up with parents who, because they struggled to make ends meet, started a family food buying club to save time and money while increasing quality, which folded into a coop, which helped even more, I see the potential for a "pull" effort. Starting a coop Starting a coop takes work, but it's a labor of love, and the Drew Gardens crew loves the work they do. Check out my other post…

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October 27, 2025

Nature / Nonjudgment / Tips / Volunteering

How “helping” people with disposable goods, especially plastic, isn’t helping compared to reusable. It’s not hard to switch back.

Regular readers know I volunteer to deliver food that stores were going to throw away to groups that make it available for free to anyone who wants it, and sometimes to people directly, always for free. The context: free food distributed with disposable plastic One of the groups, Food Not Bombs, distributes food that many volunteers bring. They also distribute for free hot food that they cook. I believe all the food they cook is made from food that would have been thrown away, though maybe small ingredients like spices, salt, and oil might be bought. People who want the hot food get in line. When served, they are given the food in disposable containers in their choice of plastic or paper (lined with coating)…

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October 25, 2025

Education / Events / Hands on Practical Experience / Volunteering

Attend my fifth annual Cooking Sustainably workshop in the Bronx THIS SATURDAY

Come to my third annual cooking workshop at the wonderful Drew Gardens in the Bronx THIS SATURDAY. Click for all the logistics: Sustainable Living with Joshua Spodek Drew Gardens is one of New York City’s great gems. I love it there. You will too, along with my famous no-packaging vegan solar-powered stew. GREAT NEWS: Past workshops have led to Drew Gardens having their own solar panels, battery, and pressure cooker. Anyone can do what I've done and they're taking steps themselves. You can too! If you're near New York City, come, meet your neighbors, and learn to do what everyone else says is impossible, but I see is the future. If you don't mind my ranting a few sentences: I can't tell you how many…

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October 20, 2025

Creativity / Stories / Volunteering

More delicious free heirloom tomatoes that volunteers and poor people rejected but I turned into gazpacho

In my newsletter I wrote about heirloom tomatoes that taste delicious that I eat after other volunteers, homeless people, and poor people reject them. Here's what I wrote, followed by a picture of the tomatoes and a picture of the gazpacho, as if it tasted different if the tomatoes weren't bruised. What's wrong with us that we act as if other people waste food? Or all the other garbage we produce? I haven't written about people wasting perfectly good food and heirloom tomatoes in maybe a month, but yesterday, again, there were at 80 pounds of bruised heirloom tomatoes. The volunteers, who volunteer to help hungry and poor people, wanted to throw the bruised one away without even offering them. The hungry and poor people…

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October 1, 2025

Hands on Practical Experience / Volunteering

When did you last prepare a full meal from scratch, not one packaged product?

I wrote last week about how people decline free produce in my post More fresh juicy local peaches and heirloom tomatoes than I can handle, saved from waste by rich and poor alike. The people declining them include from homeless, probably crazy maybe homeless people as well as volunteers who appear mainstream, likely without a worry about money or food. Here's an heirloom tomato I got for free that many others declined. Without its bruises, at the farmers market it probably would have cost 5 or 10 dollars. Actually, I have no idea since I don't buy them. They're too expensive and my CSA provides incredible tomatoes. But no way am I going to let them go to waste, especially when making gazpacho in a…

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August 22, 2025

Education / Fitness / Hands on Practical Experience / Volunteering

My CPR training certificate

If I'm going to post my certificates from Leadership Institute and Hillsdale College classes, you can bet I would post that I got certified in CPR. The training was provided to auxiliary police officers. It was optional, but once I heard it was offered, I knew I wanted to do it. I hope no one around me ever has their heart stop, but if it happens, I hope my training enables me to save their lives. We also learned about helping with choking and using a defibrillator. I don't remember a situation where I could have used the training before, but you never know. I should have done it a long time ago.

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August 13, 2025

Nature / Perception / Stories / Volunteering

More fresh juicy local peaches and heirloom tomatoes than I can handle, saved from waste by rich and poor alike

I've eaten ten or twelve juicy ripe peaches and about that number of bowls of heirloom tomato gazpacho in the past two days. I got them from volunteering. I brought food that a store was going to throw away. The store produce isn't as flavorful as the fresh, local produce in season in the height of the summer from farmers markets. Other volunteers bring different things from different places. It all gets distributed to whoever shows up to receive it at Tompkins Square Park in the East Village, generally poor people. I'm not sure how many are homeless, live in shelters with or without kitchens, or just come for free food. Someone else brought the farmers market stuff. Two large plastic bags contained the unsold,…

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August 11, 2025

Freedom / Volunteering

I love where I live. A perk of volunteering: July 4th fireworks up close (also Thanksgiving)

Common roles for auxiliary police officers include crowd control and traffic control during big events, like parades. July 4th fireworks is another big one (scroll down for pictures from last year's Thanksgiving parade). This year my patrol during the fireworks was right next to the water. I took a video toward the beginning (after ensuring it was okay with the officer I report to). Should I say it's only a minute because the fireworks went for half an hour, or it's a full minute, because even a few minutes would seem long for fireworks in most places. In any case, I love volunteering, all the more when I'm fulfilling what feels to me like civic duty. Here are two pictures from before the fireworks started.…

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July 14, 2025

Habits / SIDCHAs / Volunteering

Why I love volunteering

A few people commented on my delivering food yesterday at the hottest part of the day. The temperature hit 101F (38.3C) while I was pulling around 80 pounds of food in a cart, according to my phone's app . People often also flap their gums about not having time to volunteer. I never hear them say they don't have time for social media or other screen time, yet Americans average over 5 hours of screen time per day. I rarely spend that much time volunteering per week. And, depending on the volunteering task, I count some as cardio work. Plus my food delivery volunteering leads to free food. I help neighbors. I reduce waste. Volunteering as an auxiliary police officer helps make my neighborhood and…

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June 25, 2025

Fitness / Hands on Practical Experience / Nature / Volunteering

Watch me cooking my famous no-packaging vegan solar-powered stew at a workshop at Drew Gardens, Bronx NY

I just found a video of one of the workshops I led at Drew Gardens. I can't believe I thought I lost it. If you've wondered how I make my famous no-packaging vegan solar-powered stews, watch the workshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeLiAAapjzM Some Reviews Read more reviews here, but some examples: When Josh first invited me over for stew, I didn’t jump at the opportunity. I recall thinking that a quickly prepared meal of some legumes and fresh vegetables heated in a pressure cooker would at best be bland. After decades of consuming processed and improperly cooked vegetables that needed seasoning with plenty of salt, spices and fats, I didn’t appreciate how much natural flavor could be found in the garden. Josh skillfully mixed lentils with fresh farm…

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May 8, 2025

Habits / Stories / Volunteering

Volunteering warmed my heart on a cold spring day

I wrote the following to my newsletter and thought after finishing it that it would work as a post, so here it is. I forgot to mention that volunteering has come to replace time I used to spend watching TV or on social media. Since Americans average over five hours of screen time per day and I don't have a TV or use social media, I spend less time per week volunteering than the average American spends on screens per day. Maybe I should volunteer more, but I'd prefer Americans spend more time away from screens. I don't see the latter happening any time soon. Artificial intelligence will increase it. If you think otherwise, please bet me so I can have free money. Do we…

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March 31, 2025

Freedom / Hands on Practical Experience / Volunteering

Honoring fallen auxiliary police officers

I'm approaching one year training for and participating in the NYPD auxiliary police program. I wrote earlier about mustering for the September 11 service. Tonight I walked in the annual memorial service for two auxiliary officers who were killed on duty on this day in 2007. I took this picture as we were starting. Here's a picture another auxiliary officer took from inside the group. I'm not sure if I'm in front of or behind the picture-taker, but one of those hats may be mine. As I've served more, I'm not learning as big things as fast. I've learned that a lot of police work includes standing around or waiting. Sometimes after standing at a post not doing much, when I walk away, I say…

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March 14, 2025