DC Food Not Bombs

Starting your own FnB

2011-08-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

Hello Food not Bombs Supporters,

After a long bout of being jaded and grumpy I decided to check our e-mails and blogs and was thrilled to see so much interest in Food not Bombs out there. Unfortunately, I am starting grad school and hope to be working full time so I can no longer lead this group. Nevertheless, I am full of good information on starting your own chapter as well as handy supplies for once you get the wheels rolling so if you are interested in starting a new DC Food Not Bombs PLEASE LET ME KNOW!
I vow to check our emails consistently for the next two months so that I can be a support system so our new food not bombers out there. DC is full of a beautiful amount of optimism activism and hope and they really do need our help. It saddens me to no longer be the leader of this organization but I have high hopes for anyone wishing to start their own group. Thanks so much for all your enthusiasm!!!

Sincerely

(The former) Dc FnB

Interest meeting

2011-03-20T08:06:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the last minute post I thought another member was going to write this a while ago. Nevertheless, we will be having an interest meeting today at 4:00 in Dupont if anyone is interested in helping us re-start FnB for the spring. Hope to see people there!

Winter Hiatus!

2010-12-05T14:51:00.000-08:00

Hello All!

Just wanted to let you guys know that FnB will be taking a winter hiatus. It's just too cold to serve outside and it's only going to get worse! The food gets cold, people don't come out to eat it, and our volunteers freeze! Last week will be our last serving of the year. We'd love it if you guys could come on over and make our serving great! If you have any questions feel free to call us. We will resume our normal serving in March when people are out again.

Peace

Dc FnB

WE NEED VOLUNTEERS!!!!

2010-10-31T11:39:00.000-07:00

Hey guys

DC FnB really needs new volunteers. We are working hard to make sure that we have hot food every Sunday for people but it's hard work. If anyone knows where we could go to get food donations, if anyone would like to come help cook, if any one has good outreach and advertisement suggestions please comment or call 941 504-6569. Just as a reminder we cook from 1:30 to 3:30 in Petworth and serve from 4:00 to 5:30 in Dupont Park. We could really use helping hands. Thanks guys!

Peace DC FnB

Why is the Food Free?

2010-10-17T18:11:00.000-07:00

You know what really blows my mind? How many people recently have asked us why the food is free. I ask people "Would you like some food?" and they say "Sure... how much?" then when I tell them it's free and that they should help themselves I get scared and confused faces and an inevitable "Why....?" As though perhaps I had put something in the food. It makes me sad that we've become so suspicious of kindness as a society. People feel such a strong need to question free food because absolutely everything has a catch. Why can't we just be kind for the sake of community building and peace.
So I guess I should explain. The food is free because we are trying to build community and put some of society's focus on peace instead of hate and violence. We're promoting equality and trying to cut back on food waste. We just want to take food that would otherwise be wasted and serve it to people who need it and who will enjoy it with us.
Anyways I guess I just want to say, don't be suspicious of our intention. We're a group of people reaching out to other people. We're not selling anything, we just care. Feel welcome to join us and enjoy yourselves. We're cutting back on food waste not selling anything.

Peace

Food not Bombs DC

Beautiful Day at Food Not Bombs!

2010-10-17T18:02:00.001-07:00

Today was a gorgeous day! We served so much food! The menu was a pear and apple pie, pumpkin tart, bagels, bananas a pepper and rice noodle stir fry with teriyaki sauce, and a squash and cauliflower soup.
We definitely need more volunteers though. I am having difficulty thinking of the best ways to reach out to the community and get people involved. Today we had four people cooking, three people serving, and one person cleaning. Having such small membership is great for building relationships but can definitely be a little rough. If you're ever interested in volunteering please give us a holler. We would love to have some fresh faces!

Here are some pics of the serving today. Sorry they're not fabulous, I took them on my cell.

Gatherings

2010-06-10T13:41:00.000-07:00

reposted from http://dcfnbgathering.wordpress.com

Hello,

As many of you know, there was a gathering in Monterrey, Mexico in May, the participants came to consensus on three proposals, they are to: Improve the Food Not Bombs contact list; Have a Global Day of Action on World Food Day - October 16; and to have a World FNB gathering in Monterrey Mexico to focus on Inter Chapter Communications and Actions (http://www.foodnotbombs.net/mexico_soupsock_proposal.html).

Well, here in DC we've talked about these proposals amongst ourselves, but we'd like to see some larger scale discussion of these and other points. We are calling for two gatherings, the first will be for the Mid-Atlantic Chapters (Boston down to Richmond and over to Pittsburgh) and will be held in Washington, DC during the first weekend of September (3rd-5th). The second gathering will be for the Mississippi River and East chapters (Minneapolis, St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans, and East) and will be in DC during November 11th-14th.

At these gatherings we hope for there to be discussion on such topics as power and privilege, dumpstering, security culture, food justice, housing, the environment, much more. These aren't just for sitting around and talking though, there will be loads of food, shows, parties and radical cooks to get involved with. Talk about this in your kitchens, at your sharings, and with interested and interesting folks. We're asking for a r.s.v.p. for the Mid-Atlantic gathering by August 15th and for the East of the Mississippi gathering by October 15th.

Food and Solidarity!

Cooking for Peace

2010-03-09T09:03:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, Barrett Jones, who makes short videos featuring local groups and organizations, came out to DC Food Not Bombs to film some of the behind-the-scenes action. Check out our new video!

[Cross posted to DC Food For All]

Building a strong network

2010-02-23T18:24:00.000-08:00

We were asked by Funk the War, a student and youth activist protest that will take place March 2010, to serve food at a planning consulta earlier this month.

Over 40 youth and students from area universities, including George Washington University, Georgetown University, University of Maryland-College Park, and American University, attended the weekend planning session. To cook enough food, people from DC FNB and Funk the War gathered during the week to have a late-night cooking session. Consulta attendees who had just finished an interactive, training session were served shepherdess pie, banana bread, chili, hummus, homemade bread, and fresh fruits.

We hope to work more with other groups in the future to continue supporting each other and building community solidarity.

PS: Tax season is upon us. Individuals who meet income requirements can receive free income tax filing assistance at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library. The service is offered on weeknights Monday through Thursday, and on Saturday and Sunday during the day in the basement of the library. Please check here for specific times and additional information. Volunteers will also be available to answer questions about the Food Stamp Program.

Food access, food security, and children

2010-01-15T17:51:00.000-08:00

[Cross posted at DC Food For All]
Food access is a topic that is gaining attention both nationally and locally. A few stories this past week have converged on the topics of food access and children.

The momentum for school gardens and for students to have a better understanding of their relationship to food is building--especially in the nation's capital. The installment of the White House Kitchen Garden almost a year ago is not only the first large-scale garden on the White House grounds since Eleanor Roosevelt's victory garden during the Second World War, but is being used by Michelle Obama as a platform to engage national dialogue on health, nutrition, and food security. In particular, her focus is on kids: "You can affect children’s behavior so much more easily than you can adults," she said.

In September 2009, Michelle Obama invited students from Bancroft Elementary School to help prepare the garden and plant crops. The positive response the White House has received on this and a gathering of Obama Administration officials last month to discuss their efforts to improve America's food system lead many to be hopeful that "every American child can have access to healthy and affordable food."

With so much rhetoric currently focused on school gardens (spurred on by a recent editorial by Caitline Flanagan criticizing the school garden movement), it is important to remember that food access for children is as much about ensuring kids are eating healthy as it is about ensuring that they are getting enough food. Problems such as child obesity and child hunger both demand attention. They are manifestations of the same, complex and immensely-challenging national problem which allows profit interest to push unhealthy and processed foods to children; contributes to an increasingly demanding lifestyle which makes families pick ease and convenience in food preparation (even when they do find time for a family meal); allows healthier options to cost more, which compels parents on a limited budget to buy food that is more likely to make their children sick; or worse, forces families to choose between paying for housing, energy, medical costs and filling their stomachs.

Before he was elected president, Barack Obama set a goal to end hunger among children in the United States by 2015. Though Michelle Obama's healthy kids initiative has begun to address some of these problems by bringing awareness to child obesity, emphasizing the importance of learning about local and healthy foods at a young age, encouraging improvements to the National School Lunch Program, and fueling momentum behind the school garden movement, it is only a beginning. A recent Washington Post article about child hunger observes that "since his inauguration, Obama has seldom broached the subject. His aides brainstorm weekly with several agencies, but their internal conversations so far have not produced fundamentally new approaches."
In November 2009, a USDA report on U.S. food insecurity found that:

The number of food-insecure households sharply increased from 13 million in 2007 to a little more than 17 million in 2008

The increase was proportionally larger for households with children: the prevalence of food insecurity rose from 15.8 percent in 2007 to 21.0 percent in 2008

The prevalence of very low food security households--defined as "food intake of some household members is reduced, and their normal eating patterns are disrupted"--more than doubled from 1999 to 2008, increasing from 3.1 to 6.7 million

In 2008, 16.67 million children (22.5 percent) are affected with low or very low food security among members of their household

How are children in DC affected by all of this? On the one hand, there is some progress: DC Council members recently introduced a bill that would, among other things, establish local nutritional standards for school meals, create monetary incentive and funding for a farm-to-school distribution system, and require teaching about the benefits of local foods. However, more than 12 percent of all households in the District were food insecure in 2006-2008. Severe recession and rising home heating costs, coupled with President Obama's proposed funding reduction for Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) in 2010 (from $5.1 million in 2009 to $3.2 million 2010), and recent cutbacks in affordable housing funding in DC are forcing families to make very difficult decisions about basic living needs. “In DC where 1 in 10 households are on the waiting list for affordable housing, it’s no coincidence that 1 in 8 households reported having trouble putting food on the table in 2008. Hunger in DC has likely become worse since then, as the recession pushed unemployment to an all-time high in 2009,” a recent DC Fiscal Policy Institute report states.
Like other social issues, food insecurity is intricately tied with other problems--such as poverty, poor nutritional education, and economic stratification--and are results of competing political, social and economic interests. Children are especially vulnerable to the effects of hunger and malnutrition, which can have lasting damages on their health and development. Michelle Obama's focus on food access for children is a good start, but food security for children is far more challenging than just any one course of action (such as additional funding to food programs). Awareness and activism needs to occur at every level between national policy and community action. Though this is by no means a comprehensive list, here are some ways we as a community can begin to affect change:
Hold President Obama to his goal of ending child hunger
Raise local and national awareness on food security and food access through dialogue, forums, letter-writing to Congressmen, blogging, and other forms of online and offline social media
Volunteer with this year’s DC homeless count on January 27, 2010, which will be especially important because the Fenty administration hasn’t allocated funds to support homeless services past March 2010
Support local organizations that provide on-the-ground assistance for the community, as well as empower individuals to help themselves in the long term
Push for expansion of much-needed low-income programs, such as food stamps
Look out for each other and for neighbors who may need a little extra help, especially in the summer and winter on days with extreme temperatures

Photo courtesy Brynn Grumstrup Slate

December

2010-01-04T15:06:00.000-08:00

We had some tasty food in December but unfortunately not many people showed up to the servings. Hopefully this is just for the shock of the cold and soon enough we'll be getting our regulars again. We miss you all!

On the 10th of December we served at the annual Activist Awards put on by the Washington Peace Center. That was quite a treat, there was lively music, good poetry, a big spread, and so many community activists.

Throughout January we're going to try to have hearty soups and we are going to start having coffee to warm us all up at our servings. This coffee is compliments of Bread and Brew at 20th and N. Thank you B&B for your kindness.

If anybody has reusable containers that they would be willing to donate it would be greatly appreciated. We would like to be able to hand out containers that could be used over and over as 'to go' boxes.

The 29th

2009-11-29T18:40:00.000-08:00

So, today we had a load of broccoli and kale soup, banana bread by Doug, corn casserole, spaghetti, and some other odds and ends. Very good food all around and it went with the quickness.

We also found out that henceforth we will have live music at our servings, played by the amazing Bill Scharl, a local guitarist/singer.

Upcoming: December 10 is International Human Rights Day and we have been asked to serve at the Washington Peace Center's annual Activist Awards! Quite an honor as they do some very respectable work. It is on a Thursday which is a hard day for workers and students but if you can help out it would be appreciated.

Pictures from our Thanksgiving serving!

2009-11-29T17:15:00.000-08:00

Check out our photo gallery to see more!

Food, Peace, and Info

2009-11-26T19:38:00.000-08:00

Our goal as an adhocratic, non-hierarchical group is to promote healthy eating, peace, non-violence, community, and the reduction of waste in our economies. In order to do this we share vegan and vegetarian meals every Sunday at 4pm in Dupont Circle to anybody interested. Come join us for good food and discussion on a wide range of topics with people from all walks of life.

If you are interested in further information, helping us, or have any questions send us an email at: foodnotbombsdcne@gmail.com