Food Not Bombs
November 26th, 2007
Saving the world one meal at a time
By James D. McCallister
The heat at the top of Finlay Park, not all that unusual for an autumn afternoon in Carolina, has the crowd milling around in a state of impatience. There are smiles mixed in among the harsh words and pinched faces as a man in a ballcap hands out tickets to better organize the line of people that will soon stretch out past the restrooms and down the sloping sidewalk. A man stalks around, a regular, but he’s agitated, first talking about Jesus then some impenetrable diatribe about the injustices of the world. He cuts in line. Voices are raised. Two unfamiliar young men—entrepreneurs, let’s say—snicker at their handiwork, which is apparently to have provided the rocket fuel for the regular’s demonstrative behavior.
Such is life among the homeless, castoffs from society—either voluntarily, or otherwise—who fight the good fight on the streets of our city. Fight the fight to keep hunger at bay, or the elements in extreme weather.
The challenges the homeless face are vastly different than those of you and me. This assembly, gathered in the shadows of the luxury homes atop Arsenal Hill, are here not for a ball game or to hear a preacher’s sermon or to endure a politician’s canned pitch for votes; they’re just hungry. It has been seven days since the last Food Not Bombs offering of free sustenance to any and all who wish to partake, and people are ready to eat. For some of these indigent citizens, the passage of seven days means it has been that long since their last decent meal, or at least one as good as the Food Not Bombs group provides.
What brings this spiritually- and economically-diverse collection of “food sharers” together each Sunday? Maris Burton, a participant in the weekly endeavor for over two years, is succinct when asked what the activity means to her. “To make a difference in someone’s life.”
Food Not Bombs (FNB) is the designation adopted by grassroots activists throughout the world who have made their mission a noble and simple one: to sow seeds of cooperation rather than conflict by providing food that is “rescued” from the garbage stream, food which is then prepared and served up to whoever wishes to eat it.
Grossed out? Perhaps you should be, but for a different reason: Restaurants and grocery stores in the United States discard perfectly edible food every day, far more than people might want to believe. According to an August 2006 article in the Washington Post, the EPA estimates that 96 billion pounds of food are thrown away each year in the United States—roughly 12 percent of the entire waste stream.
And while the notion of dumpster-diving may sound repugnant, the Columbia chapter of FNB, coordinated by Rodney Lenz of the Sustainable Foundation Project, has standing agreements with several area grocery stores to recover foodstuffs before they make their way to the garbage bin. FNB, an extremely loosely-affiliated network of individual chapters, theoretically operates on the following principles:
Decision making by consensus
Nonviolence
Vegetarianism
The Columbia chapter certainly fits the FNB bill on the first two tenets, though a typical Sunday offering might also include some meat products—a huge tray of beef stir fry, let’s say, or an Italian casserole with cheese, sausage and hamburger. Recently, a member picking up last-day baked goods at a grocer discovered a huge cache of fried chicken that had been cooked for an order that was subsequently cancelled, and was now headed for the trash bin. There just happened to be enough chicken for everyone who wished to have at least one piece, a serendipitous occurrence indeed—it was a busy Sunday that day.
The original FNB formed in Cambridge, Massachusetts as an outgrowth of the Seabrook Nuclear facility protests that were underway in 1979 and 1980. Named after a shortened version of the protestors’ credo—“Money for food, not for bombs”—the nuclear activists’ first event was itself a protest by way of an altruistic stunt—the feeding of hundreds of homeless people outside a meeting of atomic power executives. The practice continued, and these 27 years later, the sharing of food is the raison d’etre of all FNB chapters.
But there is no central committee, no manifesto other than the very general one above, though there have been a few conventions of like-minded food sharers, the most recent having been in 2005. FNB chapters in general operate under anarchic principals and many are affiliated with other activist causes. FNB members participated in the Battle for Seattle WTO protests and FNB chapters have even been labeled as having possible “terrorist affiliations” by the Bush administration. FNB chapters have, in the case of the Loma Pietra earthquake and Hurricane Katrina, been some of the first responders to those affected by the disasters.
But the terrorist designation should come as no surprise to anyone aware enough to be outraged at the indulgences of our times. FNB, at its philosophical core, is about opposing militaristically-empowered capitalism, which some FNB participants believe contributes to the unnecessary wasting of food, so much so that “no one would go hungry” if the world spent as much time and energy on food sharing rather than warfare.
Noble but impossibly utopian in ideal, you say? The Columbia chapter—longtime participants include local progressive activists Tom and Judy Turnipseed, Ira and Elaine Cooper, Richie & Sandy Husman, and former Carolina Peace Resource Center director Michael Berg—doesn’t appear to spend much time debating the merits of dumpster-diving or the evils of free market capitalism: They’re here to work.
Tom Turnipseed, a long-time Columbia attorney and former state senator, and his wife Judy have been participating for five years now and are well known among the regulars for home cooked greens and Judy’s famous potato salad. Tom, who usually heads up the sharing line, speaks with an easy, familiar camaraderie to the men and women he’s here to help.
“It’s the quickest hour of the week,” he says about the Sunday chow line. “And my favorite, too.”
But with a group of needy like this—it is almost certain that many of them have substance abuse and/or mental health issues—there is the occasional moment of tension. Columbia is not a huge city and many of the people in line know each other, some perhaps too well. Occasional curses and mild threats can be heard if the wrong individuals encounter one another. On a recent Sunday, a full-on fistfight nearly broke out after someone once again brazenly broke into the otherwise orderly line. (Cooler heads prevailed, thankfully.)
Overall, though, scenes of such tension are a rare occurrence. An attitude of peace and gratitude prevails, and of accomplishment to those on the other side of the tables, who, through no affiliation (church or otherwise) take their time and money to prepare food for those who lack means, those who suffer and strive for normalcy and sustenance in a milieu of asphalt and rough, concrete surfaces.
And now the weather is turning, cold for this time of year. Food Not Bombs will be there throughout the long winter, though, providing a hot meal for no other reason than it is the right thing to do.
If you would like to participate in Food Not Bombs, bring a covered dish to the top of Finlay Park just before 1pm on any given Sunday. Cash donations to cover expenses such as plates, utensils, et cetera, can be made to the Sustainable Foundation Project, PO Box 211761, Columbia, SC 29221, a registered charitable organization operated by Mr. Lenz.
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