Our Next Event
When?
April 18th at 2pm until supplies run out
Where?
COURTHOUSE SQUARE
Come join us for a free hot meal!
Come join us for a free hot meal!
We are the Dayton, Ohio chapter of Food Not Bombs. We are a anti-hierarchical volunteer-led group of friends and neighbors who believe that we can achieve a peaceful and just world not by killing others, but by feeding them.
We collect donations of edible food from grocery stores and farms that would otherwise go to waste and cook hot vegan meals for anyone to enjoy for free, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, class, religion or creed.
Food Not Bombs as an organization was started in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA in 1980 as a response to the opening of a nuclear power plant that would damage the local ecosystem. Since then, over 500 Food Not Bombs chapters in more than 60 countries have been established. We are just one of the many FNB chapters striving for a better world.
According to the USDA, food waste makes up an estimated 30-40 percent of the US food supply. That means around 133 billion pounds of food that could have been used to feed people ends up rotting in landfills.
Why is so much food wasted? Some of it rots in transportation when it needs to be driven from farms on one side of the country to restaurants and grocery stores on the other so that those businesses can save money, rather than buying from local farms and markets. Some of it rots on supermarket shelves because no one can afford to buy the food. And some of it rots in restaurants and our own homes when food is undervalued and thrown away simply because we do not think it tastes good.
In the meantime, 48 million people in the US suffer from hunger. About 1.8 million in Ohio alone do not have enough to eat.
We at Food Not Bombs do not believe that there is a food scarcity problem. Rather, there is a food access problem. We reject the cognitive dissonance that views both the billions of pounds of food waste we create and the millions of starving children around the world as acceptable. We reject the greed that demands that millions starve so that the corporations that control the food supply can bolster their bottom line.
The only notion we accept is the truth that food is a human right, and to withhold food from the hungry is to cut yourself off from your own humanity.
Our whole world is obsessed with the idea of "stability." Nations fight wars against each other in order to bring "stability" to a region. Police fight criminals in order to bring "stability" to the streets. CEOs lay off thousands of workers and underpay thousands more in order to bring "stability" to the economy.
But no war has ever brought "stability" to the world - only death to the people and contracts for arms manufacturers. No policing has ever brought "stability" to the streets - only incarceration for poor criminals and mere fines for white collar criminals. No CEO has ever brought "stability" to the economy - only destructive cycles of unemployment for the workers and yachts for the bosses. The only "stability" that these powerful entities seek is the stability of their own power and privilege.
The way to maintain true "stability" is to make sure everyone has what they need - food, water, shelter and human connection. According to a 2022 study by Deshpande and Mueller-Smith, the 1996 US Welfare Reform law that removed Supplemental Security Income from low-income disabled youths caused a 60% increase in the likelihood of incarceration for those youths, which nearly evened-out the tax savings that this policy created by increasing police budgets and prison budgets necessary to keep people imprisoned (which, of course, meant a nice profit for the prison industry and police). A 2021 study by Stuart and Taylor saw that a standard deviation increase in social connectedness resulted in a 20% decrease in murders. When people are fed, clothed and loved, they have no need to lie, cheat and steal.
The powers that be perpetuate their power through violence, and have led us to believe that violence is the only way to be powerful. We at Food Not Bombs understand that everyone can be empowered not by violating each other, but supporting each other.