Food Not Bombs
Food Not Bombs (FNB) is a loose-knit group of independent collectives, sharing free, usually vegan and vegetarian food with others. The group believes that corporate and government priorities are skewed to allow hunger to persist in the midst of abundance. To demonstrate this, FNB serves surplus food gathered from grocery stores, bakeries and markets which would otherwise go to waste, or occasionally has already been thrown away. The group exhibits a form of franchise activism.
Type
Network of collectives
Food Not Bombs is an all-volunteer global movement sharing free, usually[1][2] vegan meals as a protest against war and poverty. Each chapter collects surplus food from grocery stores, bakeries, and that would otherwise go to waste and occasionally collects items from garbage dumpsters when stores are uncooperative.[3] FNB also accepts donations from local farmers, then prepares free community meals which are offered to anyone who is hungry.
Meals are usually vegan or vegetarian, as stated in the groups principles.[4] However, the Gainesville, Florida, US chapter, for example, serves meals that include animal products such as chicken, pork chops, brisket, steak and shrimp.[1][2]
According to FNB, the group's central beliefs are:[5]
Coinciding with these beliefs, the groups' goals are:
Activity[edit]
1980s[edit]
Food Not Bombs was founded in 1980 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by anti-nuclear activists Keith McHenry,[9] Jo Swanson, Mira Brown, Susan Eaton, Brian Feigenbaum, C.T. Lawrence Butler,[10] Jessie Constable and Amy Rothstien. According to Keith McHenry, the name came about when he discovered that they were distributing food to the poor just across the street from a new building development for Draper Labs where, rumor had it, they were designing nuclear weapons.[11] McHenry says that it made the group realize that "there are hungry people on one side of the street. There are people on the other that are making money making nuclear weapons. We should be called 'Food Not Bombs.'"[11] Co-founder, Keith McHenry has volunteered for 35 years and can be found sharing food almost every week in various cities including Santa Cruz, California, and Taos, New Mexico. The members' activities included providing food, marching, and protesting. They protested such things as nuclear power, United States' involvement in the Salvadoran Civil War, and discrimination against the homeless.[12]
The first arrests for sharing free food (aka 'sharing') occurred on August 15, 1988 at the entrance to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California. Nine people were arrested that day, including McHenry. The city made over 1,000 arrests, and Amnesty International declared these volunteers 'prisoners of conscience'.[13]