From January 16–18, the downstairs of Montague City Hall transformed into something unexpected — impulse sealers clicking, mylar bags crinkling, and volunteers laughing over “Councilman Potato” and “Mayor Wheat.”
That was the sound of the Montague Commoners DIY Emergency Food Bucket prep weekend, a hands-on community effort to help local residents build a two-week emergency food supply without overpriced “prepper” kits, complicated calculations, or having to do it alone.
Founded in 2021 by a group of local foragers and permaculture gardeners, the Montague Commoners have grown by experimenting, paying attention to what works, and refining their approach each time. The Emergency Food Bucket Project is one of their most ambitious efforts yet — and a clear reflection of their core belief that communities are stronger when people work together.
What the Emergency Food Bucket Project is
At its core, the Emergency Food Bucket Project is about making preparedness practical and accessible.
“The Emergency Food Bucket Project is a chance for folks in town to get a two-week emergency food supply without having to pay high prices to dodgy companies that market to preppers, or buy specialized equipment and do a ton of math,” the Montague Commoners explained. “We bought dry staple foods in bulk so we could get low prices, and invited everyone who wanted a bucket to pitch in some time to help get it all packed for long-term storage.”
Each bucket contains a carefully portioned mix of staple foods, sealed in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers to extend shelf life for 25 years or more. The idea is to create something that can sit quietly in a basement corner — ready if it’s ever needed.
Why preparedness — without fear — matters
For the organizers, the project isn’t driven by panic or worst-case fantasies. Instead, it’s about reducing stress and uncertainty by taking one manageable step.
“Honestly, we’re hoping this helps people think about emergency food preparedness less,” they said. “An emergency food supply is something that’s easy to check off the list. Come spend a few hours having fun with your neighbors, go home with a two-week food supply, find a corner of your basement to stash it in, and you’re set for the next couple of decades.”
They point out that if a natural disaster or major disruption ever cut off food supplies to the White Lake area, thousands of people would need to be fed until help arrived — a challenge that becomes far easier when households already have food on hand.
A month of planning behind the scenes
Before the first volunteer arrived, there was nearly a month of preparation.
That preparation included research, spreadsheets, and extensive math to determine how to build a balanced two-week food supply that could realistically fit into a single five-gallon bucket. In total, the shopping list included more than a dozen staple foods — beans, lentils, rice, oats, wheat berries, pasta, powdered milk, sugar, potato flakes, and salt — totaling well over a thousand pounds of food.
Supplies were sourced primarily from Whispering Pines and Costco, with the hope of partnering with Montague Foods for future events. Everything was pre-packed into labeled bins, each containing 50 pounds of one food type, the correct bags and oxygen absorbers, and a simple instruction sheet so volunteers could jump right in.
Photos courtesy of Montague Commoners
Setup — many hands make light work
When doors opened Friday morning, the first task was moving more than 30 bins of food and supplies from storage into City Hall’s downstairs space.
Thanks to a large setup crew, the work went quickly. Bins were grouped by food type to minimize cross-contamination and keep the workflow efficient — an early example of how much easier large tasks become when shared.
Photo courtesy of Montague Commoners
Packing the mylar bags
Once setup was complete, volunteers began portioning bulk food into mylar bags.
Tasks naturally divided among the group: labeling bags, writing dates, opening bags, scooping and measuring food, and delivering filled bags to the sealing station. Each shift developed its own rhythm, with people gravitating toward tasks that suited them best.
“I loved watching people self-organize into assembly lines,” one organizer said. “Once people understood the basic steps, they naturally gravitated toward the parts they were best at. Nobody had to boss anyone around — people just wanted to help.”
When ten bags were ready, everything paused for one of the most memorable moments of the weekend — the official countdown.
“They come in sealed packs of ten,” an organizer explained of the oxygen absorbers. “As soon as the pack is opened, everybody joins in on the ‘3…2…1… Oxygen absorbers!’ chant and races to get the bags zipped closed.”
The bags were then sealed with impulse sealers — a specialized tool that makes much more sense to share at a community scale than to own individually.
Photos courtesy of Montague Commoners
Packing the buckets — the real puzzle
One of the biggest challenges turned out to be fitting everything into a single bucket.
Each bucket held 11 different mylar bags, and foods like oats and potato flakes take up more space than their weight suggests. For a time, organizers worried they might need to split the contents between two buckets.
That changed when volunteer Josh Davis figured out the right combination of folding, arranging, and strategic squishing.
With his method replicated, all 50 buckets were successfully packed — though, as organizers admitted, “we had to sit on a lot of lids to get them closed.”
To speed up the process, bins of finished food were lined along the city council desks so volunteers could grab one bag from each bin in sequence — purely for logistical reasons, despite ongoing jokes about councilmembers Potato and Salt vying for power.
Photos courtesy of Montague Commoners
How it went — and what stood out
Over three days, 12 volunteers helped pack food, assemble buckets, and clean up. Most bagging was completed Friday, bucket packing finished Saturday, and Sunday was reserved for cleanup and distribution.
What stood out most to organizers was how quickly the work moved once people showed up together.
“I’m always surprised by how fast we can get through food when we’ve got five or six people working together,” one organizer said. “On my own, it takes hours to bag 50 pounds of food. As a group, we can do the same amount in half an hour.”
Accessibility and community care
The Montague Commoners also intentionally designed the event to welcome people of different ages and abilities, including specialized “Kids Only” and “Elders Only” shifts.
While no kids participated this time, several parents said they would have brought children if they’d known it was an option — feedback organizers plan to address more clearly in future promotions. Elders did participate, sharing stories from decades of living through local blizzards and outages.
“It’s not a community event when huge chunks of the community are missing,” the organizers said. “Kids and elders are both important parts of the social ecosystem.”
The result — and what’s next
By the end of the weekend, the goal was met: 50 fully packed emergency food buckets.
About a dozen went home with volunteers. Another dozen will remain at City Hall for community relief efforts in the event of a disaster. The remaining buckets are still available to be claimed through money-only or mixed labor shares.
Looking ahead, the Montague Commoners plan to refine their inventory tracking and repeat the project — with the long-term hope that most households in town will eventually have a bucket tucked away.
“If someone reads about this and didn’t participate this time, we hope they still come away knowing they’ve got the power to do something just as cool for their community,” the organizers said. “You don’t need permission from anyone in charge. You might need to work hard — but if you care about community, you’re probably used to that.”
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