Chicagoland peeps

First of all, is there anyone who lives near me who needs packing plastic? You know, bubbles and those little packets of air that come with your mail-order stuff? If not, does anyone know an organization that re-uses it? Pottery studio or something?

Second, as my unemployment stretches on, I am getting to practice more and more domestic skills like cooking. I'm making some pretty amazing soups and breads and I am finding that buying grains and legumes in bulk in good both for our pocketbooks and for the environment (pesky plastic bags). However, our appetite for dried bits in overcoming our appetite for the spaghetti sauce that provides the jars to store them in. Does anyone have jars - spaghetti, canning or otherwise - that they'd like to donate to our increasingly earth-mother-y kitchen?