Food Not Bombs shares free vegan and vegetarian meals with the hungry in over 1,000 cities around the world to protest war, poverty and the destruction of the environment.With over a billion people going hungry each day how can we spend another dollar on war?
Food Not Bombs is one of the fastest growing revolutionary movements and is gaining momentum throughout the world. There are hundreds of autonomous chapters sharing free vegetarian food with hungry people and protesting war and poverty. Food Not Bombs is not a charity. This energetic grassroots movement is active throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia. Food Not Bombs is organizing for peace and an end to the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. For nearly 30 years the movement has worked to end hunger and has supported actions to stop the globalization of the economy, restrictions to the movements of people, end exploitation and the destruction of the earth.
The first group was formed in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1980 by anti-nuclear activists. Food Not Bombs is an all-volunteer organization dedicated to nonviolent social change. Food Not Bombs has no formal leaders and strives to include everyone in its decision making process. Each group recovers food that would otherwise be thrown out and makes fresh hot vegan and vegetarian meals that are served in outside in public spaces to anyone without restriction. Each independent group also serves free meals at protests and other events. The San Francisco chapter has been arrested over 1,000 times in government's effort to silence its protest against the city's anti- homeless policies. Amnesty International states it will adopt those Food Not Bombs volunteers that are convicted as "Prisoners of Conscience" and will work for their unconditional release. Even though we are dedicated to nonviolence Food Not Bombs activists in the United States have been under investigation by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, Pentagon and other intelligence agencies. A number of Food Not Bombs volunteers have been arrested on terrorism charges.
Food Not Bombs is often the first to provide food and supplies to the survivors of disasters. During the first three days after the 1989 Earthquake, Food Not Bombs was the only organization in San Francisco providing hot meals to the survivors. Food Not Bombs was also the first to provide hot meals to the rescue workers responding to September 11th World Trade Center attacks. Food Not Bombs volunteers were among the first to provide food and help to the survivors of the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Our volunteers organized a national collection program and delivered bus and truckloads of food and supplies to the gulf region. We were one of the only organizations sharing daily meals in New Orleans after Katrina. Food Not Bombs is now preparing for the economic crash organizing Food Not Lawns community gardens, housing the homeless with Homes Not Jails, organizing additional meals each week and starting new Food Not Bombs chapters.
Food Not Bombs works in coalition with groups like Earth First!, The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, Anarchist Black Cross, the IWW, Homes Not Jails, Anti Racist Action, In Defense of Animals, the Free Radio Movement and other organizations on the cutting edge of positive social change and resistance to the new global austerity program. Food Not Bombs provided the meals for the protesters at Camp Casey outside Bush's ranch in Texas. Volunteers also helped organize and shared meals at the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle and provide logistical support for many other anti-globalization actions. Kiev Food Not Bombs fed the tent city protest during the Orange Revolution and groups in Slovokia started animal rescue shelters in 24 cities. We are also sharing meals at protests responding to the global economic crisis. Many groups organize Really Really Free Markets giving away all kinds of items for free, planting Food Not Lawns community gardens and housing people with the Homes Not Jails project. Many chapters also organize Bikes Not Bombs programs collecting and repairing used bicycles to provide to people in low-income communities. We also provided meals to protesters at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in the United States. We will provide meals to the families of striking workers and help organize actions encouraging alternatives to the failure of capitalism.
Food Not Bombs activists are currently making plans to celebrate our 30th year of cooking for peace. Along with organizing the celebration each local chapter collects and distributes food every week and there are several other projects that support the Food Not Bombs movement. One collective called "A Food Not Bombs Menu." helps people find or start local chapters. They also maintain the website www.foodnotbombs.net, organize tours and support Food Not Bombs gatherings. They also provide books, t-shirts and other materials to promote the principles of Food Not Bombs. Another collective Food Not Bombs Publishing in Takoma Park, Maryland publishes books like "On Conflict and Consensus" which has been an important guide for group democracy. We hope you will join us in taking direct action towards creating a world free from domination, coercion and violence. Food is a right, not a privilege.
Food Not Bombs is dedicated to using nonviolent direct action to change society. Our volunteers not only provide meals to the hungry on the streets and at protests we also participate in planning and implementing campaigns of nonviolent direct action. Our volunteers helped organize and provided meals to activists at blockades, sit-ins, strikes, marches, tree sits and lock downs. Our actions can involve art, music, puppets, banners and many other creative strategies. Our volunteers have provided food to workers and their families while on strike and they have smuggled food into factory and office occupations. Food Not Bombs volunteers can help facilitate Nonviolence Trainings to prepare for campaigns of non-cooperation and nonviolent resistance. There is nothing passive about nonviolent direct action.
Each Food Not Bombs chapter is autonomous and uses a process of Consensus to make decisions. There are no leaders, presidents or directors. Everyone in each chapter is encouraged to participate in the decision making. Your chapter may meet once a week or once a month but no one volunteer is empowered to tell the rest of the group how it is to operate and there is no headquarters to direct the activities of any chapter. The process of consensus is not voting or the use of "Robert's Rules of Order" where a majority determine the decisions. In consensus a decisions is not made until the proposal is one everyone participating supports and gives their consent. There are a number of resources to help your chapter learn to use consensus on the web and you can also request support from volunteers who have been active in other Food Not Bombs groups.
The first group was formed in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1980 by anti-nuclear activists. Food Not Bombs is an all-volunteer organization dedicated to nonviolent social change. Food Not Bombs has no formal leaders and strives to include everyone in its decision making process. Each group recovers food that would otherwise be thrown out and makes fresh hot vegan and vegetarian meals that are served in outside in public spaces to anyone without restriction. Each independent group also serves free meals at protests and other events. The San Francisco chapter has been arrested over 1,000 times in government's effort to silence its protest against the city's anti- homeless policies. Amnesty International states it will adopt those Food Not Bombs volunteers that are convicted as "Prisoners of Conscience" and will work for their unconditional release. Even though we are dedicated to nonviolence Food Not Bombs activists in the United States have been under investigation by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, Pentagon and other intelligence agencies. A number of Food Not Bombs volunteers have been arrested on terrorism charges.
Food Not Bombs is often the first to provide food and supplies to the survivors of disasters. During the first three days after the 1989 Earthquake, Food Not Bombs was the only organization in San Francisco providing hot meals to the survivors. Food Not Bombs was also the first to provide hot meals to the rescue workers responding to September 11th World Trade Center attacks. Food Not Bombs volunteers were among the first to provide food and help to the survivors of the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Our volunteers organized a national collection program and delivered bus and truckloads of food and supplies to the gulf region. We were one of the only organizations sharing daily meals in New Orleans after Katrina. Food Not Bombs is now preparing for the economic crash organizing Food Not Lawns community gardens, housing the homeless with Homes Not Jails, organizing additional meals each week and starting new Food Not Bombs chapters.
Food Not Bombs works in coalition with groups like Earth First!, The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, Anarchist Black Cross, the IWW, Homes Not Jails, Anti Racist Action, In Defense of Animals, the Free Radio Movement and other organizations on the cutting edge of positive social change and resistance to the new global austerity program. Food Not Bombs provided the meals for the protesters at Camp Casey outside Bush's ranch in Texas. Volunteers also helped organize and shared meals at the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle and provide logistical support for many other anti-globalization actions. Kiev Food Not Bombs fed the tent city protest during the Orange Revolution and groups in Slovokia started animal rescue shelters in 24 cities. We are also sharing meals at protests responding to the global economic crisis. Many groups organize Really Really Free Markets giving away all kinds of items for free, planting Food Not Lawns community gardens and housing people with the Homes Not Jails project. Many chapters also organize Bikes Not Bombs programs collecting and repairing used bicycles to provide to people in low-income communities. We also provided meals to protesters at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in the United States. We will provide meals to the families of striking workers and help organize actions encouraging alternatives to the failure of capitalism.
Food Not Bombs activists are currently making plans to celebrate our 30th year of cooking for peace. Along with organizing the celebration each local chapter collects and distributes food every week and there are several other projects that support the Food Not Bombs movement. One collective called "A Food Not Bombs Menu." helps people find or start local chapters. They also maintain the website www.foodnotbombs.net, organize tours and support Food Not Bombs gatherings. They also provide books, t-shirts and other materials to promote the principles of Food Not Bombs. Another collective Food Not Bombs Publishing in Takoma Park, Maryland publishes books like "On Conflict and Consensus" which has been an important guide for group democracy. We hope you will join us in taking direct action towards creating a world free from domination, coercion and violence. Food is a right, not a privilege.
Food Not Bombs is dedicated to using nonviolent direct action to change society. Our volunteers not only provide meals to the hungry on the streets and at protests we also participate in planning and implementing campaigns of nonviolent direct action. Our volunteers helped organize and provided meals to activists at blockades, sit-ins, strikes, marches, tree sits and lock downs. Our actions can involve art, music, puppets, banners and many other creative strategies. Our volunteers have provided food to workers and their families while on strike and they have smuggled food into factory and office occupations. Food Not Bombs volunteers can help facilitate Nonviolence Trainings to prepare for campaigns of non-cooperation and nonviolent resistance. There is nothing passive about nonviolent direct action.
Each Food Not Bombs chapter is autonomous and uses a process of Consensus to make decisions. There are no leaders, presidents or directors. Everyone in each chapter is encouraged to participate in the decision making. Your chapter may meet once a week or once a month but no one volunteer is empowered to tell the rest of the group how it is to operate and there is no headquarters to direct the activities of any chapter. The process of consensus is not voting or the use of "Robert's Rules of Order" where a majority determine the decisions. In consensus a decisions is not made until the proposal is one everyone participating supports and gives their consent. There are a number of resources to help your chapter learn to use consensus on the web and you can also request support from volunteers who have been active in other Food Not Bombs groups.
All our food is vegan or vegetarian, that is, no meat, dairy, or eggs. This is for many reasons, but for now, two will do. First, the potential for problems with food spoilage are greatly reduced when dealing strictly with vegetables. With the process we use, we rarely hold the food we collect for more then a couple of hours. Second, teaching people about the economic and health benefits of a vegan or vegetarian diet is directly connected to a healthy attitude about ourselves, each other, and the planet as a whole. It is also a direct challenge to the injustice of the military/industrial economic system. This is not to suggest that it is our policy that everyone should be vegetarian or that eating meat is wrong. We encourage awareness of vegetarianism for political, spiritual, and economic reasons. We only prepare food which is strictly from vegetable sources so people will always know and trust Food Not Bombs food has this standard whenever they come to our table. At times, we take already prepared dairy and meat products which might have been donated to us and take it to soup kitchen that aren't vegetarian because we believe eating is more important than being politically correct; however, we never cook with animal products ourselves.
The name Food Not Bombs states our most fundamental principle: That our society needs things that give life not things that give death. Our society is dominated by violence and the threat of violence. This affects us both in our daily lives through the constant threat of crime and police abuse and less directly but just as seriously through the threat of total annihilation from nuclear war. The authority and power of our government are predicated on the threat and use of violence. They continue to spend more time and resources developing, using, and threatening to use weapons of massive human and planetary destruction than on nurturing and celebrating life. Food Not Bombs has chosen to take a stand against violence. As a group of individuals we are committed to non-violent social change through the celebration and nurturing of life by giving out free vegetarian food.
Poverty is violence. By spending money on bombs instead of addressing human needs, our government perpetuates and exacerbates the violence of poverty in our society. One of the most direct physical expressions of the violence of poverty is hunger. Millions of Americans go hungry every day and childhood malnutrition contributes heavily to infant mortality rates, which are higher in parts of the U.S. than in some Third World nations. Inadequate or non-existant health care, police brutality, and class discrimination are also forms of systemic violence against poor people. Poverty is also a key factor in the level of interpersonal violence. It can drive down people's self-esteem, causing people to lash out in the form of domestic violence and violent street crime. The violence of poverty also becomes internalized which can result in addictive behaviour and suicide.
Food Not Bombs responds to the problems of poverty and self-esteem in two ways. First, we provide food to whomever wants it in an open respectful way. We don't make people jump through any bureaucratic hoops that are designed to control and often punish people for being poor. Secondly, we invite people who eat with us to be involved in providing the food themselves. This helps people to regain a feeling of their own power and their ability to change their situation.
The food we serve also expresses our commitment to non-violence. Mainstream food production is an inherently violent process involving the slaughtering of millions of animals, the death of an estimated 10,000 field workers annually, and the poisoning of the air, water, soil, and our bodies with chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Food Not Bombs is providing a service to people that attempts to address some very serious problems at no cost to the government. For some reason, sone cities have chosen to use violence to try and stop us. In these cities police are routinely used in large numbers to take our food and equipment; arrest, threaten, and/or beat-up our members. In this way they reinforce the violence of the State in the face of ever growing human needs. It is extremely important that we respond to these attacks in a non-violent manner which is consistent with our views of human value. It is never in our interest to use violence against the state, or other humans. In practical terms the state is capable of mustering significantly more violent force than we are so we risk our own safety from further, more intense police violence. More philosophically, we don't want to be in the position of recreating the power of the state in our own efforts for social change. We want to create a society based on human rights and human needs; not on the threat and use of violence.
Food Not Bombs works hard to prevent violence within our own community by ensuring that food is never used as a weapon against anyone. At demonstrations and our daily servings we concentrate on serving food in a peaceful and respectful manner, thereby creating a safe environment for people to eat in. The food we serve embodies our commitment to non-violence in so many ways. It is a humane response to poverty, a means of empowering people and is ecologically safe
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