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Hidden with code "Submitted as Feature" |
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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Food Not Bombs vs. Pizza Hut: a Win-Win Situation |
Current rating: 0 |
by Faith Swords, Elizabeth Forcier, Zoe Swords
Email: faith (nospam) ucimc.org (unverified!) |
07 May 2004
Modified: 02:40:53 PM |
This afternoon, at the corner of 5th and Green, the new local chapter of Food Not Bombs (see http://www.foodnotbombs.net) had its debut on the sidewalk in front of Pizza Hut. Passers-by stopped to have a free and healthy vegan lunch of soup, garlic bread, banana bread and Kool-aid.
This project was part of "The Public Square", a three-week long project dedicated to reclaiming public spaces while bringing issues that are under-discussed or confined to private sectors (such as teen sexuality, radical christianity and public school budget planning) into the public sphere.
Today's Food Not Bombs event was planned and orchestrated by members of the Comm 490 Political Performance class, as well as members of the IMC. Food was gathered both from surplus supermarket stock and local donations. |
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Zoe Swords, Food Not Bombs organizer, IMC member and participant in the Comm 490 class says, "What was excellent about this action was that we educated twice as many people as we fed and were able to do a lot of outreach among both the student- and non-student communities. This was a great opportunity to let everyone who has been interested in starting Food Not Bombs in Urbana for a long time learn both how much work it was and how much fun it was. Food Not Bombs is really effective because it recognizes that hungry people are still people and does more than just 'feed' -- it creates a happy public party space for everyone involved. I think that the energy after today is really high, and that's a really good thing."
After cooking for 4 hours, Food Not Bombs set up a table at noon on the sidewalk outside Pizza Hut, located at 5th and Green, in an attempt to provide a healthy alternative to corporate fast food. As organizers passed out flyers and drew designs in sidewalk chalk, many passers-by stopped to find out what was going on, and many of them joined in serving others. In the hour that FNB was serving, somewhere between 50 and 150 people came by, some to eat, some just to talk about what FNB is and why they chose this particular location. The choice to serve at Pizza Hut today was in response to the corporation's refusal to honor a boycott of Sweet Mushrooms instituted by the United Farm Workers for unfair labor practices, as well as construction of new buildings by non-union companies, which led to another boycott by the Carpenters Association of America. Pizza Hut is a division of Pepsi-Co, which has a subsidy called Yum Foods that controls KFC and Taco Bell, both of which are also boycotted by the UFW and CAA.
Elizabeth Forcier, Food Not Bombs organizer, says, "I was very excited by the positive reaction and fairly large turnout for the event. We've been talking about starting one up for a while and it was nice to see that it was so well-received by the community. Even the Pizza Hut employees helped out! When we ran out of drinks to serve, they supplied us with free ice water in order to continue the feeding. It gives me a lot of optimism for long-term Food Not Bombs organization in C-U."
If you would like to get involved, or would like more information about future FNB events, send an email to foodnotbombs (at) chambana.net. |
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See also:
http://www.thepublicsquare.net
http://www.foodnotbombs.net
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This work is in the public domain |
