Read this online at https://lffc.us/posts/restock-2026-08/.

Welcome to the Restock!

Updates and Changes

No substantial updates to LFFC this month in what it’s stocking, but we made one addition to the structure this month: a memorial. Details at the end.

Monthly Usage

This month, we had 48 outgoing completed calls made from our Futel phone, as well as 22 and 611 calls made from our Connections phones at the Estelita’s Library Seattle Community Fridge (SCF) site and Cafe Red site, respectively.

• 300 pairs of socks
• 1260 Band-Aids
• 75 CoBan rolls
• 45 ABD gauze pads, and 58 non-adherent pads
• 567 nitrile gloves
• 149 packets of Vaseline
• 87 sunscreen packets
• 266 masks (N95 and KF94)
• 153 doses of ibuprofen
• 97 pairs of earplugs
• 61 ponchos
• 82 pencils
• 166 body wash/shampoo/shaving gel packets
• 267 toothbrushes
• 196 tubes of toothpaste
• 142 tampons
• 122 menstrual pads (across all sizes)
• 490 packets of hand sanitizer
• 107 paper bags
• 218 razors
• 397 condoms, 14 internal (“female”) condoms, and 222 lubricant packets
• 35 boxes (70 doses) of naloxone nasal spray, and 31 kits (62 doses) of injectable naloxone
• 54 water bottles

Our COGGA for this month is $960.22, 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, Angharad Caceres, Rebecca Francis, Diana Kroemer, Bill O’Connor, Brenton Clark, and Andrew Smart. Thank you all so much!

Memorial

Earlier this year, we lost a close friend both of our family and of the LFFC project: Katy. She helped do a lot of the design of LFFC, but she also inspired it; as our son’s nanny, she walked with him around the neighborhood every day, and kept handwarmers, gauze, hand sanitizer, and other necessities in his stroller to give out to people. She hadn’t been homeless herself, but some of her family have been, and she had also worked in harm reduction and other street outreach groups; hence, she had lots of good suggestions from the large-scale (organization and logistics) to the small (hand out nitrile gloves with two stuffed inside a third, to keep two very clean for wound care even if dropped). Most of the items we give out were either suggested or influenced by her; she also took it upon herself to (ahem) dissuade folks up to no good from their behavior at LFFC, or antisocial behavior in the neighborhood generally. She was good at that.

We feel very lucky that we told her, often, how much she meant to us, and how important she was to our son.

We’ve added a plaque in her memory to LFFC. A small obituary we wrote follows the photo.

Katherine Noelle Dolatshahi, 1988-2026. Our friend, and a friend to those in need. She helped us remember that all the people we meet on the street are our neighbors, and many of the best ideas for LFFC came from her. She would have hated this sign. We miss her.

A friend has died. Katherine Noelle Dolatshahi, known to most as Katy, died in May in her home at the age of thirty-seven. She was murdered by the Republican Party, who made her health insurance unaffordable even though she worked full-time; she died of an illness she couldn’t afford to get treated by a doctor. She will be one of millions who suffer the same fate in this decade; her death, while tragic, is unremarkable.

Her life, by contrast, was remarkable in many ways. She was born in Washington state, but grew up in Compton, California before moving back to Washington in high school. Her family was touched by substance abuse and tragedy several times, but Katy emerged from it all as a deeply-competent and deeply kind person. She chose to make her living as a nanny, and that’s how we met her: as first-time parents with a six-month-old child, who had spent the first four months of his life in the NICU. She had taken of medically-fragile family members for years (first her goddaughter, then her father), so she was wholly willing to tolerate the post-NICU masking regimen to keep Afton safe. We found her very different from ourselves, but competent and trustworthy, so we hired her.

She immediately delighted Afton, and they became fast friends as he grew from infant to toddler to grown-up preschooler. When at two, we realized he needed sign to compensate for a lack of facility with spoken English, she learned ASL along with him; when he started preschool at HSDC, she made friends with his classmates and teachers. (We are told that nationwide, only around 15% of parents learn ASL for their Deaf children; as the nanny for a non-Deaf but signing child, learning sign just for him put her in rarefied territory!) After more than three years, she moved on to care for another baby as her full-time job, but she still came to hang out with Afton for a “date night” (ostensibly for his parents, but really for he and Katy) every week until she died.

She could, and did, talk to everyone; she befriended store clerks, houseless folks, drunks, and all the other people in our neighborhood, usually while walking around with Afton (at first in a stroller, of course) to see the sights and take the air. Walking with Afton on the weekends, we (his mere parents) often found he was warmly greeted by people who knew him well but hadn’t yet met us; “oh, I see him out with Katy all the time!” Being a universal friend often put her on the scene; she saved at least two lives with naloxone during the time she was Afton’s nanny (one while waiting for chicken wings), as well as being the first responder to several car crashes and one (small) plane crash. (She reported that calling 911 for a plane crash isn’t as easy as one might think, as the dispatcher tends to think it’s a prank.) She even took the time to explain the Drake vs Kendrick rap battle to us, so we could cheer along with her hometown as Kendrick explained that the “colonizer” really was “Not Like Us.”

She died because she worried she would be driven into bankruptcy by going to the ER. She died of the stochastic cruelty of the ultra-wealthy who see themselves as mountaintop gurus to be worshiped, rather than members of a diverse and caring society. She died a statistic. More importantly: she lived, brightly, and she brought light to all who knew her. She is survived by her brother, her sister, and people all over who are diminished by her absence.

We miss her.

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 [email protected].