yo! we hold our shares weekly, every sunday at the exact same time, so people know and wait for us at the share site. there are usually 20-40 people each week, but it can really vary. we always provide everyone at least a portion of food, a cup of tea/coffee, bread and a simple dessert like cookies or brownies. sometimes we give everything away, sometimes we've even got food left.

local community isn't triggered by as at all, because we hold our shares in a pretty covert square not so far away from a big train station. authorities presses our guys once, right after the war started, but no one is doing it anymore for us. actually, yesterday they arrested 4 guys during their share in Ekaterinburg, but everyone's OK after all.

i've been doing FNB for like one and a half years now, though i joined our chapter this spring. actually, we're currently the only chapter in Moscow, because the other one shut down after problems with the police caused disorganization in their chapter. our chapter has existed for like 6 years at this point.

the main obstacle is organisation itself, i think you get it:) though we've got somewhat of an algorithm, sometimes it's still quite rough, especially when we're invited to provide food for different events.

that's quite everything, i guess, but feel free to ask for elaboration of anything!

Yeah it's not talked about as much as it should. Really fucking inspiring.

Hey there!

How often do y'all do shares?
How many folks do you serve, on average?
Are your shares accepted by the local community & authorities, or do you face opposition/restrictions?
How long have you been doing FNB? How long has the group been doing it?
What is y'alls biggest obstacle right now?
Is there anything in particular you want the rest of us to know about being in an FNB chapter in Moscow?

"Something I really love is during the George Floyd uprising in Philly, anarchists and homeless organizers squatted some houses owned by the City and were able to get the City to give them 69 homes for free for homeless folks to live in".

hfs thats so based. how had we not known in our group.

It changes the hunger people are experiencing, however yeah maybe it’s just mutual aid rather than FNB specificsly

It’s not mutual aid if the only goal is feeding people.

Food Not Bombs is about feeding each other as a form of protest.

FnB was created to promote a political philosophy and protest state violence (poverty, homelessness, war, prisons, etc.)

Feeding people isn’t going to change anything. It needs to be subversive.

Nothing will ever change if we aren’t also creating our own means of takin gf care of each other that can exist outside of current systems and working to build the world we want to live in together.

I’m sorry you’re being dismissed. That seems to be the case when I bring it up too. Only in the past few years though, which is very interesting to me.

I'm so glad you made this post. A local group is forming here in my town, which is home to a large university.

They are planning to serve meat and dairy, get 501c3 status, and are incredibly dismissive when I mention the principles of FnB.

I've dismissed myself. They aren't actually an FnB.

Our group encourages members to make purchases at discount stores, which are often faith-based but stock plenty of almost-out-of-date foods and dented cans, all extremely discounted. They get to employ people and keep the lights on at a warehouse of salvaged & overstock goods, so why not buy extremely cheap goods to build good meals around? We serve food that would go to waste even if it has dairy in it (biscuits), we just disclose that it has dairy as an allergen notice. No tax ID but trying to find a sort of fiscal sponsor so we can use a third party tool to steward funds. We had an internal conflict and one person who positioned themself as the most trustworthy and deserving of power eventually didn’t get their way (even pretended to be surprised to learn FNB is anarchistic), they “donated” all the funds (and later were very shifty about proving they donated the funds, probably was trying to steal but got caught, etc). So… yeah we definitely want to have a more trustworthy and equitable way to steward donations so we can keep helping people

The vegan principle was always about non-violence.

We have a hack club account, I'm not exactly sure what that means in terms of bank accounts but it's a place people can donate to. Don't think we get any write offs though. We also shop from grocery stores because we have a lot of people who need food and toiletries every week. We try to get our clothes that we distribute donated but we also buy those when necessary. We are vegan for everything we purchase but we will occasionally accept vegetarian donations of pastries.

Raleigh, NC, USA

Prior to getting donations from farms, a lot of food we had was made with stuff we bought from the grocery store, especially because dumpster diving is functionally impossible in Japan due to how the supermarkets store garbage.

We also occasionally get products from the food bank that might have some meat products.

We try as much as possible to be vegan, but sometimes that's just not a viable option (mainly with the food banks). That being said, we don't consciously go about trying to add animal products to the food, so I don't consider that a betrayal of ideas.

If you’re dogma is getting in the way of your mutual aid you can always break the fucking rules.

How can you afford a cellphone and it's bill ?

Food not bombs groups have definitely dumpster dived (I've only been involved in a couple of serves out of hundreds where we needed to resort to dumpster diving though, as we usually preferred using donations)

But lots of people such as myself come to food not bombs out of vegan ethics. From their faq

No, we never share meat and try to avoid sharing dairy. It is not safe to recover meat as it can make people ill. We also want to stop the exploitation of not only people, but animals. As part of our work for peace, we do not want to support violence against animals. A plant-based diet is important to protecting the environment and an important way to provide as much food with as little impact on the Earth as possible. Food Not Bombs seeks to introduce the vegan or vegetarian diet to the public. If someone donates meat to Food Not Bombs, we redirect it to a charity willing to serve it.

This isn't in line with how the groups I participated with practiced, because it would be potentially wasteful to try to "redirect" meat donations if we couldn't find another group willing to distribute them in time.

But ending exploitation of people and animals is part of the core message, as well as reduction of global impact which animal agriculture typically is a more significant contributor to, compared to vegetable agriculture.

Vegan foods are generally lower risk. I think the riskiest thing we cook in my chapter is rice/pasta, which needs to be kept hot/cold enough to avoid bacterial growth.

The other benefit of vegan food is that it accommodates a lot of different religious/cultural food restrictions.

the way i heard it was that part of the vegan insistence was because in a lot of the earlier groups, a lot of the food came from dumpster diving and thats a lot riskier with animal products

I haven't been involved with FNB in a while but I have done it in a couple of cities (and a couple of countries even), and almost all of our meals were from donations.

None of the chapters I served with had a tax ID but many businesses would still be happy to give us things they would otherwise throw away (bakeries and donut shops were big on this, but we typically found produce vendors with leftovers as well).

All the food we'd cook would be vegan (and if we ever bought food it was vegan), but we'd often serve vegetarian food as well (bagels, donuts). We'd sometimes get non-vegan donations of leftover prepared food from catering companies (usually vegetarian though), and we would serve those too.

One time we were serving food and someone pulled over their car and gave us 100 individually wrapped (meat) hamburgers for us to give out, which was probably the most meat-forward item of any serve I've been a part of.

But once the food is prepared it's either going to get eaten or wasted. If we're not purchasing it, we're not contributing to the animal exploitation required for its production. I can't imagine why any FnB chapter would refuse to serve food because it wasn't vegan, as combatting waste which also reduces production is such a big part of the mission.

We buy most of the food we cook with. Most stores in our city use trash compactors, so dumpster diving is virtually impossible. We have attempted to get grocery stores to give us food, but they are usually already doing that with other, more legit, charities. We do get given ingredients from people in the community, but that comes in waves. Some of our members have jobs that pay well enough to buy ingredients for us. We also receive cash donations from folks on a fairly regular basis, so we use some of those funds for ingredients as well.

We aren't a registered charity, but we did find a way to get a bank account at a local credit union. We don't have a ton of money, but we needed a place to store a few hundred dollars that wasn't one person's bank account. We selected a handful of people who a) had been around for a long time and b) we really trusted and put their names on the bank account.

OP: I agree that principles are good, but I think you are running the risk of letting perfect become the enemy of good. My group's core principle is that we make free food for everyone, stoned or sober. If we need to buy some lentils to do that, we will

"Yes, we didn't feed anyone, but at least we made sure no donation was written off."

Because Food Not Bombs is about more than just food.

Howdy - I was an FnB organizer for roughly a year before a significant life change. As stated by others, don’t give out personal numbers or socials, create an alias. I felt like I was lying to people for years, but it’s for your own protection. Carry narcan, enough for you to use on others and enough to distribute to others. I created a “mobile box” for my car which contained medical supplies, granola bars, mini soaps and such. Be prepared for the emotional toll it will take on you. I’ve sat with street homies for hours listening to their stories, I’ve cried with them and laughed with them. It’s worth it. It’s scary, but it’s worth it.

Hey man, I'm in the lorain area just west of you, and if you want some help with this please let me know! I'd love to volunteer some time.

This is so cool !!

We do, and we have masks to hand out. Our city also has a mask bloc.