Up Close with Food Not Bombs

Food Not Bombs Co-Founder, Keith McHenry shares the 35-year history of Food Not Bombs and where we are today in living up to the ideals of the Food Not Bombs vision.

Food Not Bombs Show Summary
Keith McHenry has introduced a Co-Founder of Food Not Bombs and shared the story on the Food Not Bombs website:
From FoodNotBombs.net FAQ’s

“One of our friends Brian Fieganbaulm was arrested at the May 24th Occupation attempt of the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station and we needed to raise money for his legal expenses so we started holding bake sales outside the student union and in Harvard Square. We didn’t raise much money but I also had a moving company called “Smooth Move” and we moved a family that was throwing out a poster that said “Wouldn’t it be a beautiful day if the schools had all the money they needed and the air force had to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.” This gave us the idea to buy used military uniforms at the Central Square Army Surplus Store. So we dressed as generals and propped the poster up next to our bake goods and told people we need them to purchase our cookies and brownies so we could buy a bomber. This caught people”s attention and while we didn’t raise much money we did reach a lot more people.

The First National Bank Project required us to design a brochure about how the board of directors of the Bank of Boston also sat on the boards of the Public Service Company of New Hampshire that was buying Seabrook Nuclear Power Station and the board of Babcock and Willcox that was building the power station. We were already distributing produce that couldn’t be sold from Bread and Circus Natural Grocery so we decided to take some of this recovered food, prepare soup and dress as Hobos and set up a soup kitchen outside the stockholders meeting of the bank with the message that their policies were similar to those of the banks that caused the Great Depression. The night before the March 26, 1981 action we became worried that we would have gallons of soup but not enough people to eat all of it and make it look like a real depression era soup kitchen so a couple of us went to the Pine Street Inn and told the homeless men at the shelter that we were would have a protest the next day at noon outside the Federal Reserve Bank at South Station. To our surprise, nearly 70 people arrived. Soon business people passing by were sharing food and conversation with the homeless talking about the investment policies of the Bank of Boston and the dangers of Seabrook Nuclear Power Station.”

Keith then shared the status of Food Not Bombs today and how Food Not Bombs collectives are dealing with the fact that 31 states have now made it illegal to share food with the homeless.

This is Keith telling the story of Food Not Bombs to activists in El Paso, Texas

Food Not Bombs

Keith McHenry

Bio
Facebook
“Hungry For Peace: How You Can Help End Poverty and War with Food Not Bombs” by Keith McHenry
FREE copy of “Hungry for Peace: How You Can Help End Poverty and War with Food Not Bombs from FoodNotBombs.net

“Hungry for Peace: How you can help end poverty
and war with Food Not Bombs” by Keith McHenry

Food Not Bombs has proven to be an effective project for social change. Hungry For Peace passionately makes the case to take action to end hunger, poverty, and war providing shocking evidence that our future is in peril if we sit by and do nothing. This book will motivate you to take action and provides hope. This new, 188 page, Food Not Bombs handbook has 122 photos and illustrations, vegan recipes to provide meals for groups of 100 and families of 6 with metric and U.S. measurements, the 30 year history of the movement, logistics on how to start a local Food Not Bombs group, how to prepare meals for hundreds, how to organize meetings, tours, gatherings and successful campaigns of nonviolent direct action. This 8 1/2 by 11-inch book also provides flyers you can reprint, the timeline of major events in the history of the movement and many other useful details to help change society.