Food Not Bombs Newsletter for Winter 2023.

Food Not Bombs Winter Newsletter 2023

PROGRAMS

Helping the Humans

We continue to deliver home-cooked vegan meals to low-income families and individuals across Edmonton at no cost through our flagship program Helping The Humans. There are no criteria for receiving food from this program.

Community Meals

Previously called SOY meals (Street Outreach YEG), we have held several community meals over the last few months. Community meals are held at Beaver Hills House Park where we serve hot, vegan food outside to anyone who is hungry. During these meals we also supply clothing, harm reduction supplies, hygiene supplies, and relevant literature.

Fruit Collection

Between August and October we held our yearly fruit collection program. During this program we took donations of fruit and vegetables from around the city to use in our HTH and community meal programs. The goal of this program is to save fruit from fruit trees around the city from being thrown out and turning it into meals for our various programs.

Community Fridge

We continue to maintain a community fridge located outside of Earth's General Store. This fridge is cleaned and stocked weekly so that people experiencing food insecurity can take what they need at no cost.

POLITICAL ACTIVITIES

Food Not Bombs members were involved in various political activities over the past months including taking the lead in organizing counter-protests in response to homophobic and transphobic organizers holding multiple protests against Sexual and Gender Identity (SOGI) guidelines and resources in schools.

Other News

Food Not Bombs partnered with the University of Alberta Community Service Learning program and took on six students who were each required to do 20 hours of volunteer work as part of their coursework.

About Us

With over a billion people going hungry each day how can we spend another dollar on war?

Food Not Bombs is an international organization dedicated to fighting hunger, poverty, and war. We believe that it is unconscionable that billions of dollars are spent on murder and repression while billions of people go hungry. Rather than wasting time, money, and energy on the futile task of asking politicans to change their policies, Food Not Bombs directly creates a better world, starting in our own communities.

1 in every 8 housholds in Canada is food insecure. The cause is not laziness, stupidity, or lack of education.[1] Children miss meals every day because of systemic poverty and waste caused by irresponsible government and corporate greed. More than 58% of the food produced in our country is wasted,[2] and much of that waste is intentional and completely unnecessary. Food is thrown away, destroyed, or poisoned by big agribusiness, corporate grocers, and restaurants in order to keep prices high. Food Not Bombs directly responds to this waste by recovering perfectly good food that would otherwise be thrown away, ensuring its quality, and preparing and serving healthy meals to those most in need.

While over 4 million households suffer from hunger, our federal government spends $21.9 billion of our money on death and destruction.[3] Despite a dearth of national security threats, military spending increases year after year after year, with over $233 million earmarked directly for terrorizing other countries such as Ukraine and Afghanistan. This money may be numbers on a spreadsheet to O’Toole or Trudeau, but for millions of Canadian children, it’s meals stolen directly from out of their mouths, and for children abroad, it’s fire and death rained down upon their heads. Food Not Bombs directly opposes wasteful military spending on bombing the Middle East,[4] giving military equipment to cops,[5] and stirring up trouble abroad.

Food Not Bombs is not a charity. We do not believe that hunger is some eternal problem that can only be addressed by the altruism of the rich and powerful. Rather, hunger is caused by the rich and powerful. The hunger and want caused by greed, waste, hate, and callousness can only be addressed by the people themselves working together to achieve sustainable food sovereignty for themselves. Food Not Bombs is on the front lines of this struggle, directly recovering food that would otherwise go to waste and providing fresh, healthy, vegan meals for anyone who is hungry.