Utah Stories

The Voice of Local Utah

Food Not Bombs: More Than an Event, It’s a Lifestyle

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When Keith McHenry’s phone rings, it may be people calling the Hunger Hotline. The toll free 800 number assists callers in locating their local Food Not Bombs chapters, offers tips on how to collect and cook food, how to start a local chapter, and what to do if the police try to stop your group from sharing food and other information about Food Not Bombs.

“We receive from five to 20 calls a day from callers all over North America,” McHenry said. “Questions range from people looking for food, information on how to volunteer with their local group to reporters wanting to interview a Food Not Bombs volunteer.”

McHenry is the co-founder of the global movement Food Not Bombs. He also maintains the organization’s website, help individuals start local groups, speaks publicly about the organization, interviews with the media, college students and other academics. He is also one of the volunteers that fills t-shirt and other merchandise orders.

“I was an art student at Boston University and worked mornings in the produce department of a local natural food grocery called Bread and Circus,” he said. “I felt guilty throwing away so much less-than-perfect produce so I started taking it to the nearest public housing project.”

Active in over 1,000 cities in 65 countries, Food Not Bombs is now a worldwide organization of volunteers that primarily recovers food that cannot be sold, prepares vegan meals to share on the streets, and organizes to affect societal change with an aim to eradicate hunger, homelessness, and improve availability of healthcare and education. Among those many worldwide chapters are three Utah-based chapters: one based in Provo and two based within Salt Lake City.

Founded in the early 2000s, the Salt Lake City chapters of Food Not Bombs self-describe as a loose-knit group of independent collectives, serving free vegan and vegetarian food to others and notes that the group exhibits a form of franchise activism.

“It started out with folks cooking food and distributing it like that, but we soon realized we didn’t have the capacity to cook all the time, but we did have the time and the networks to organize grocery pick-ups,” said Food Not Bombs SLC chapter members Cole Armstrong and Ella Mendoza, via email. “We get donations from local grocery stores, and often rescue the food before it goes to waste. Some donations even come from trees in people’s backyards.”

Starting in Cambridge, Mass. in May 1980, the Food Not Bombs movement began as a response to the policies being proposed by Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign. His supporters wanted to adopt policies that would make deep cuts in social programs and huge increases in federal funding for the military. McHenry says that these changes that were ultimately made starting in 1981, drove millions of Americans into homelessness and poverty, dramatically increasing hunger.

A second Food Not Bombs group formed in San Francisco in 1988. In August of that same year, police began arresting the volunteers for “making a political statement.” These arrests inspired people to form Food Not Bombs chapters in their own cities.

“Our participating in protests and disaster relief has been an important part of our work,” McHenry said. “We provided food to people participating in environmental protests, support for indigenous communities’ efforts to stop nuclear power and the nuclear arms race, animal suffering and industrial agriculture, genetic engineering, police violence, government repression of the homeless, attacks on democracy, racism; homophobia, sexism, the exploitation of workers, the prison system and many other social ills.”

In 1992, Food Not Bombs held its first world gathering in San Francisco. The participants agreed to three essential principles of the organization, which still unites the organization today. First, that the food is vegan or vegetarian and free to anyone rich or poor, stoned or sober. Second, that every group is autonomous and independent. That there would be no leaders, presidents, directors or headquarters making decisions using the consensus process and strive to include those depending on Food Not Bombs for food to participate in the decision-making process. The third principal was that Food Not Bombs is not a charity and is dedicated to taking nonviolent direct action to change society so no one would go hungry or be forced to live on the streets.

“The people that come to Food Not Bombs come from all sorts of different backgrounds,” Armstrong and Mendoza said. “They’re migrants, they’re locals, they’re punks, they’re elders, and young, we have little kids come with their families and they get so excited when they see the food, especially the fruit.”

In addition to delivering meals to those who need them, Food Not Bombs chapters around the world have lead workshops on basic organizing and details of how to organize a campaign of protest and nonviolent direct action. They also hold related workshops on community gardening, silk screening, puppet making, bicycle maintenance, canning and fermentation, cooking, composting, the use of consensus decision making and many other skills.

“Food not bombs is more than an event, it’s a lifestyle, the best way to take care of one another and to build community is to take things into our own hands, DIY you know?” Armstrong and Mendoza said. “And by doing this ourselves, we’re not just building community, we’re building community power.”

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Sharing Fruit with SLCgreen Fruit Share

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At the peak of fruit tree harvest season, it’s hard to walk down some neighborhood streets without getting thumped in the head by a falling apricot or plum. Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but throughout summer and fall, the Wasatch Front is rich with trees heavily laden with choice produce. In fact, there is such an abundance of ripe riches that the prosperity creates a problem. Often homeowners either cannot utilize the bounty, or they dislike the sludgy mess of fruit that has fallen in their yards. Food goes to waste, or, unfortunately, homeowners may choose to remove the perceived nuisance.

A few years ago, creative minds in SLC’s Division of Sustainability and the Environment teamed up with the Food Policy Task Force and designed SLCgreen-Fruit Share, a program through which fruit harvested from private properties gets allocated to people who can benefit from nature’s bounty. “You can’t turn down a city block in Salt Lake City without seeing fruit on the ground,” Sustainability Program Manager Bridget Stuchly says, “so we started this program to start getting that fresh produce into the hands of people who need it, and to help homeowners take care of these trees so they are not tempted to take them out.”

The harvest is divided into thirds among homeowners, food assistance programs and volunteer fruit-pickers. Property owners also benefit from volunteers’ pruning and thinning the fruit trees on their property. But the primary goal of the program, Bridget notes, “is to get rid of food waste and get it into the hands of people who could use it.”

Homeowners register their trees online through the slc.gov website. Avenues resident Melaney Birdsong Farr has registered her apple, plum and pear trees. “It’s a fantastic idea,” she says. “The extra fruit goes to community-based projects. Otherwise, the fruit usually ends up in the backyard and I don’t feel very good about it.”

City partner organizations then coordinate both volunteer fruit-picking opportunities and distribution. The program partners list is comprised of organizations well-rooted in the community. TreeUtah, Avenues Fruitshare, Green Urban Lunchbox, Utahns Against Hungers’ Real Food Rising and Salt Lake Community Action Program all participate in assessing community need, organizing volunteer events and transporting produce. SCLgreen-Fruit Share always needs volunteers, as more trees are added to the register every week. Registration is processed online, and volunteers under 18 require parental or youth group leader supervision.

“We all need to eat; food is common to us all,” says Real Food Rising Director, Mike Evans. “We want to help people who have lower incomes have access to healthy, organic food, and to help bridge those gaps when possible. We take a lot of the produce to Hildegard’s Food Pantry, Salt Lake Cap Northwest and the Community Action Program,” he adds. Real Food Rising, and their team of fruit-picking volunteers harvested 10,000 pounds of fruit last year.

Shawn Peterson is the Executive Director for Urban Green Lunch Box. Shawn too is dedicated to making sure that community members receive quality sustenance. “We don’t like to give damaged fruit to food banks because it’s kind of a degrading experience if all you get is seconds. We like to always give the prime best fruit,” he says. “We use the damaged or misshapen fruit for our ‘Value Added Program’ and make syrups, jams and chutneys. These are sold at farmers markets and all proceeds go back to fund the program.”

An additional goal that The Green Urban Lunch Box shares with the SLCgreen-FruitShare program is to care for the trees along the Wasatch Front. “We want to make the program self-sustaining,” Shawn says. Thus, they have launched a pilot program in which they provide tree-owners with “all the tools, liability insurance, and volunteer recruitment, and we just pick up the fruit,” he says.

Lauren Cunico thins young fruit from a plumb tree in the Avenues in Salt Lake City
Lauren Cunico thins plums from an Avenues fruit tree Photo by Mike Jones

Real Food Rising, Utahans Against Hunger and The Green Urban Lunch Box have helped the SLCgreen-Fruit Share program expand their reach beyond Salt Lake City limits. Real Food Rising now branches out into Salt Lake County, and The Green Urban Lunch Box extends their services into southern Davis County.