Start your own Food Not Bombs

If you are looking for help with starting your own chapter, please read Seven Steps to Organizing a Local Food Not Bombs or book written by C.T. Butler and Keith McHenry: Food Not Bombs: How to Feed the Hungry and Build Community

Food Not Bombs South Philadelphia served food at the protest on the corner of Broad and Walnut in Center City in Philadelphia on August 10, 2002. More than 25 MOVE members and supporters (including several visiting from Spain) gathered for a demonstration to commemorate August 8, 1978. On this day, 24 years ago, more than 500 heavily armed police officers attacked MOVE headquarters in the Powelton Village neighborhood of West Philadelphia. When the MOVE family fled into the basement to avoid the attack, police countered by flooding them out ...

... more info and images from DC Indymedia

Coalition of three FNB groups served food at anti-racist rally

For past two years racist Richard Barrett chose Morristown for his racist rallies. This was first year he had not shown up to the central New Jersey city. Allowing the New Jersey Independents to claim the court house steps in celebration against fascism. A group of human rigths activists gathered peacefully to discuss their success, and future battles against racism in the area.
Coalition of three Food Not Bombs chapters from New York City, Hoboken and New Brunswick supplied a vast amount of free delicious food. FNB has always been part of these anti-racist rallies. First year, when people were pepper-sprayed by police, FNB groups from Hoboken and New Brunswick were the only source of clean water and clean paper towels.

... please visit NJ IMC for more details

Interview with FNB Slovakia

FNB Newsletter #3 (Netherlands)

Interview with Keith McHenry

Tucson, AZ (January 12, 2002) - This past January, Peter and I visited Keith McHentry in Arizona and interviewed him for the website. In the interview he talks about the very beginning of Food Not Bombs and all the different projects they were involved in. He goes on to explain the growth of Food Not Bombs and new chapters began appearing by themselves. He also discusses the artistic form FNB took in the beginning and what may have happened to bring about problems within and destroy local chapters. Here are a few excerpts from the interview:

"That night when we washed the pots and stuff at home we said "We should really do this, to organize on the streets against nuclear war and nuclear power all the time." So I went and told my boss I was going to quit and do this project feeding the homeless...We started cooking every day and started serving food on the streets at Harvard Square. We took food to local shelters. It was so much fun. The more we were out on the streets serving food, the more we got into it, and it was so exciting."

"We got the idea of doing Food Not Bombs as living theater. Our idea was to do political theater using food as a way of dramatizing either poverty or the fact that there was enough food and that capitalism was withholding food intentionally from the poor or sometimes we would pretend we were generals that were doing a bakesale to buy a B-1 bomber and we'd do skits like that. We had a street performance permit for Cambridge and we would just do this in Harvard Square three or four nights a week. Sometimes we would go out even at two in the afternoon and we'd just stay there until midnight or one o'clock. We would have drums and musical instruments. We eventually got super-8 cameras and we would make videos and project them on sheets tied to trees or onto the walls of buildings and stuff."

"...[when] they stopped brining out banners and being artistic and doing street theater and stuff and it became a charity, the burnout rate was much higher, and people didn't have fun doing Food Not Bombs. They became alienated from the people they were sharing food with, and as a result volunteers dropped off very fast and they had to cut back. Instead of doing it every day of the week, they started cutting back to it three days a week, and I don't know what their schedule even is now. It stopped being fun and it became like a chore where the goal was to feed these poor homeless people and that they weren't a part of our community."

For the full interview, click here...

Food Not Bombs in Finland

There are currently eight at least somewhat regularly working independent groups in Finland. These groups are located in Helsinki, Jyväskylä, Tampere, Turku, Lappeenranta, Joensuu, Mikkeli and Savonlinna. Couple of new groups are about to be set up in Lahti and eastern Helsinki. On the whole, at least one event has been organised in 12 different cities or towns during the four year history of FNB in Finland. So it has been a great success in such a sparsely populated country. One reason for this is that FNB links many things like military, social and environmental issues together.

[Read more about FNB Finland...]

Food Not Bombs in 80 Days

Erin and Mackenzie, two really good, food-lovin' friends, wanted a change from their lives in Halifax Nova Scotia, and it took them a really long time to figure out what they wanted to do. They tossed around possibilities until one day it hit them. They wanted to travel, but they didn't want to stop helping out with the local Food Not Bombs… "Hey, let's visit different Food Not Bombs!" They pulled out the trusty atlas and started mapping out their great adventure.
Their little trip turned into a three-month super tour, thirty Food Not Bombs in nearly 90 days. Gee whiz. Since Erin's a writer and Mackenzie's a photographer, they decided it only made sense that their project should include the production of a book. A book about Food Not Bombs.
That's how the idea behind the Food Not Bomb tour in 80 days (well more like 90) began. We feel that behind any social justice movement, food issues play an integral part-it's the basis of our survival and the binding force behind most communities-- and in order to develop a sustainable alternative community, thedistribution of food must change from a system based on privilege to one where all food is free. Our dedication to this simple philosophy makes us eager to learn more about the diversity involved in free food distribution. And the key word is diversity. We know that each collective experiences a wide range of successes and obstacles, particular to the uniqueness of the communities' demographics, its peoples, its food management, and its histories. Understanding this diversity will help promote free food distribution and in return challenge existing oppressive hierarchies.
We want to know how other FNBs tick, how you keep dishing out wonderful, vegetarian food, how you handle those months when no one seems to have the time. Hands-on experience of various Food Not Bombs is the best means of self-education and for the development of teaching tools. The knowledge and experience obtained on this tour will obviously assist with the evolution of a thriving free food community in Nova Scotia when we return to Halifax Food Not Bombs. And we want to share our experiences with others by writing a book, a resource tool for existing and new collectives.
The tour, beginning in mid-September will involve visiting and volunteering with selected Food Not Bombs collectives in Canada and the United States. We want to volunteer with food gathering, preparation and cleaning so that we can experience the free food distribution process of the collectives we meet and in return share our own experiences from working with Halifax Food Not Bombs. And while we help, we'd like to learn more about the histories of each Food Not Bombs and your approaches to building a non-hierarchical community based on mutual aid and cooperation. We like to see old posters, pamphlets, newspaper clippings and recipes, anything that will help us understand each Food Not Bombs' unique stories.

[Click here for more information and trip diary...]

"Food Not Bombs" Resurrects Service Activism in SLC

Salt Lake City Food Not Bombs, after a year hiatus, has begun meeting every Saturday in Pioneer Park to prepare a free lunch for the park's indigent residents in pursuit of the "radical notion" that our first priority should be meeting the basic needs of everyone. Food Not Bombs is an international phenomenon that makes a point of showing just how wasteful our economically oriented societies are by cooking vegetarian meals with 100% donated food from local restaurants, supermarkets, distributors and producers.

[Full article from utah.indymedia.org...]

Food Not Bombs in Netherlands

There are about 10 Food Not Bombs groups in the Netherlands. Especially the last year many people started to be active in a Food Not Bombs group. Here is a short history of dutch FNB.
The first Food not Bombs group in the Netherlands was the one in the Hague (Den Haag as we call it in dutch) where the government is seated. This group started to collect leftover vegetables and bread from the organic market. In one of the squats of the Hague they made soup and salads and they handed out the food in the busiest shopping street of the city. Soon after that a group of people who lived in Amsterdam started a Food Not Bombs group in the capital of the Netherlands. They were very positive, enthousiastic people and they made a nice video about their work.
The next city to become interested was Utrecht, in the heart of the country. With some help from the Amsterdam and the Hague group they organized an info evening where many people became interested to help with this new project.
The idea of getting leftover food from supermarkets, organic markets and other shops became very popular. Especially because the Netherlands is a country where people are very spoilt. Fruits or vegetables that are not totally fresh are thrown away and as there is so much food in the stores, you can imagine how often the veggies end up in bins. Therefore, many people wanted to take action against the over production and the way we consume food here in Holland and they were very happy with the Food Not Bombs ideas.
In more and more cities new Food Not Bombs groups were started and members from existing groups helped by telling them about their experiences.
At this moment there are active groups in Groningen, Wageningen, Arnhem, Eindhoven, Den Bosch, Utrecht, Nijmegen and Amsterdam. There are a few groups with some difficulties at the moment and we have heard of people who are thinking of starting a new Food Not Bombs group in other places as well.
Most of the groups consist of young people. Squatters, students, activists and socially involved people work together to make the Food Not Bombs actions happen. As our main goal is not anti-militarism we do not always use the name Food Not Bombs but we call ourselves free food groups. Though, when there are anti-militaristic actions we like to join in and serve free food under the Food Not Bombs name!
In 2002 (in spring) we are going to organize a Food not Bombs weekend with workshops, music and action. Everybody is invited. For more information, contact us! Address: FNB; P.O.Box 255, 3500 AG Utrecht, Netherlands or email us: freefood@dds.nl