Wesleyan’s members of Food Not Bombs (FNB) got together this Sunday morning to cook up a huge meal, replete with delicious homemade pizzas, and take it to Middletown to give it away on the street. The slices went fast and then the volunteers served up cups of black bean soup, tofu stir-fry, and toasted bagels. With the bread broken, the conversation got started and the weekly picnic picked up more hungry passersby on Main Street.

Salvatore, a long-time friend of students who organize FNB and a sometimes-homeless person who grew up in Middletown, brought his regular contribution of habanero hot sauce to share with everyone and gave his complements to the chefs. Sal has helped out with FNB many times over the years and, like many of FNB’s regulars, he relies on the program for a nutritious, hot, free meal every Sunday, when the main soup kitchen is closed.

For the last nine years, the Wesleyan/Middletown chapter of FNB has been a meeting ground for campus activists, students from neighboring towns, and community members. The volunteers who organize FNB each week are concerned with redistributing the wealth of food that would go to waste (particularly at Wesleyan) to people who live in downtown Middletown. Giving away free food and having a community picnic on the block every week is also a lot of fun and gives students and residents a chance to meet and talk. As a sustained project, FNB helps create community, trust, and friendliness among Wesleyan students and Middletown residents.

Food Not Bombs meets at a location on Wesleyan’s campus—usually a student house—every Sunday between 11 and 11:30 AM. FNB currently meets every Sunday at 11:30 AM at 202 Washington Street to cook food. FNB serves food to between 15 and 35 people each week in front of St. Vincent DePaul’s Place (the soup kitchen) at around 12:45 PM.

FNB receives donations from students, left-overs from catered student and faculty events, and donations from individuals, organizations, and businesses in downtown Middletown. FNB also collects extra boxes of fruits and vegetables from Wesleyan’s student-run Fruit and Veggie Co-op each week. FNB stores donated and salvaged food at 202 Washington Street. The food FNB redistributes comes from many sources and whenever the group collects too much, it takes it over to St. Vincent DePaul's Place to donate it.

The first Food Not Bombs groups were started by activists in the 1980s on the East Coast and the movement has been spreading around the world ever since. Collectives, like the one based at Wesleyan, form independently and model themselves based on the general principles and pursuits of most FNB chapters such as nonviolence, redistribution of wealth and resources, freedom of assembly in public spaces, consensus-based decision making, reduction of food waste as a way to end hunger, and the use of vegan and/or vegetarian foods.