Food Not Bombs

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Food Not Bombs

Posted By: Rafael
Date: Monday, 12 August 2002, at 7:37 p.m.

Something that I would never do on a Sunday morning of my summer vacation is wake up at 8am to catch the 181 bus for a forty-five minute ride. What would make me do this? The fire and energy in a sixteen-year-old body to make sure that one human being does not go hungry that Sunday afternoon. Upon arriving at the local Hoboken Food Not Bombs chapter at Hoboken, NJ, I was inspired to witness a young couple with two children devote their house to store these nutritious vegetables, fruits, and rice. Long before my presence at their home, the task of preparing the meals was under-way. I will now admit that before that Sunday, my entire cooking or preparation of meals was just simply frying eggs. I spent two hours chopping zucchinis for a stew, and chopping apples for fresh apple juice. I had there over two boxes of fresh apples that would have otherwise have gone to waste. During my chopping, there was cooking, washing, preparations, organizations, and more then I could view. When everything was setup, slowly we descended the stairs carrying as much as each one of us can. Our third member arrived by car across the street with a trunk filled with pastries and bread collected at local bakeries. Some how we managed to fit two large jugs of apple juice, two huge coolers filled with lemonade and cold water, three oversized grocery bags with the bread and pastries, a large purse filled with extra apples, bananas, and other fruits, about 4 trays with different meals in each, a trunk with our basic everyday supplies, and the table. All of this food and supplies were carefully stocked inside a small Volts Wagon trunk that not even I could fit. A ten-minute ride led me to a park on the waterfront where a small crowd of about five was awaiting for our arrival. To our luck, we were able to find a shopping cart next to the parking lot that we were able to place the meals and trunk in the cart and just stroll to our spot. When we reached our spot on the foot of a fountain in the park, I was met by two extra members that brought over a pot of stew and extra trays of food. Within five minutes, by working together we set up the table, banner, food, drinks, everything. The two children and the six of us were sitting and helping serve the meals to the people that if it were not for us, would not have a meal that afternoon. Once our table was set up and stable, one of the organizers and I took out a pack of flyers from our utility trunk and went off to distribute them throughout the park. When distributing the flyers, several people asked me many questions that I never thought of. The most common question was, “Why are you doing this?” The first time I was asked, I took a pause and actually thought about it for a while. Why would I do this? I am not receiving any money, nor any material rewards, not helping any religion or church, not hanging out in the sun for fun. I then came out with my personal reason why. “When governments around the world spend trillions of dollars to teach how to kill, why do the people of the same nation starve to death? Why did three cases of apples almost go to the garbage, when I turned those apples into juice for all to drink?” I am as amazed with my reason as much as the questioner was. For about half hour, we were giving out the flyers and were asked several other questions that were easier to answer. In total, I met about five people that took the message seriously, and went to the stand to get the free meal. Just one of them made a difference. Knowing that one person did not go hungry that afternoon made me wonder how much more can we feed if everyone recovered these so-called “wastes” and turned them into nutritious, delicious free food. In fact I was inspired so much that I plan to start my own chapter near my hometown by spring of next year. I got home at 9pm, and spent my entire day with the fnb group. I was offered to go to the beach with the family, go out with friends, but instead made sure that I made a difference for the people.
- Rafael, 16. Newest member of the Hoboken/Union City Food Not Bombs chapter

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