Food Not Bombs November 2021
Newsletter
Hello and thank you for picking up our newsletter! Here you will find updates on recent and upcoming FNB happenings. As always, don’t forget to read the whole thing for some thoughtful writing from a friend of FNB on a topic that reflects our values. You may have noticed that we took a break from the newsletter in October. We were hard at work this past month coming together to try out some new strategies for organizing our projects to create space for an even more flourishing mutual aid community!
Namely, we have been experimenting with a model known as “sociocracy” to help us spread out responsibility amongst volunteers in the FNB collective to make our projects more successful! With sociocracy, we use a consent (similar to consensus) based process rather than majority voting to make decisions. Here at FNB there are no bosses and everyone has different strengths to bring to the table. With sociocracy, everyone has the opportunity to step up and participate in the parts of our work that are the most engaging to them. Using this model we have had success with volunteers creating and joining “circles” that take on different bodies of work, with the consent of a general assembly of volunteers. So far, the assembly has created a financial circle, a kitchen circle, a volunteer coordination circle and a resource gathering circle.
The financial circle has been successful in creating a new model for receiving donations and creating a more transparent format to record expenditures and has opened a group account at Directions Credit Union! The kitchen circle has done significant work organizing our kitchen and has brought useful adjustments to our workflow in an often busy prep space. We are very excited about the work that each circle is doing and are excited to share more about our progress as time goes on.
This month we have some great opportunities to support our work. Our friends with Toledo Area Vegans and Vegetarians have organized a food drive with contributions coming to us at the end of November! You can find drop off sites at The Phoenix Earth Food Co-op (1447 W Sylvania Ave.), Leaf and Seed Cafe (166 10th St.) and the Mindful Table at Levis Commons. We will be accepting any non-perishable vegan or vegetarian items. Some suggestions include canned goods, pastas, Better Than Bouillon, jasmine or basmati rice, dried beans and spices.
We will also be hosting a fun fundraising event at the Attic on Adams on Thursday November 18th, in lieu of our usual bonfire. There will be drink specials (both with and without alcohol) with proceeds going to our group and a box for non-perishable food donations. We are so excited to enjoy your company!
On November 18th we plan to welcome students from the YWCA’s Teen Outreach Program to participate in cooking with us as well as working on winterizing the Collingwood Community Garden.
As for now, we still plan to serve meals on November 25th (Thanksgiving Day). Throughout November, we expect the weather to bring an end to the bonfire season. Facebook is currently the best place to check for updates each Thursday to find out if the bonfire is happening.
If you’d like to support Food Not Bombs with a monetary donation and help keep our pantry full through the winter, visit our Paypal or you can now send a check made out to Food Not Bombs Toledo to 622 w Woodruff Ave, Apt. 4. Toledo, OH 43604
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your continued support of Food Not Bombs Toledo!
Everything I Need To Know About Anarchism I Learned in Kindergarten
By Hugh Goldring
I love my pediatrician’s office. When I say ‘my pediatrician’ I mean it two ways: She was the first person to ever hold me. The woman who saw to my physical health until I turned 18. Now, she is the doctor of my firstborn child and I find myself back in the comfort and security of her office after a 10 year hiatus.
On the waiting room wall, she has one of those posters that says ‘everything I need to know for life I learned in kindergarten.’ It’s all about how to get along with others, and it’s cute enough to warm the most cynical adult heart.
To tell the truth, I’ve always thought about anarchism that way. In kindergarten we are taught to share. We are taught to play nicely. To be curious. Not to touch people without their permission. We learn that it’s wrong to hit people when they upset us and that stories are very important. Art is for everyone. Above all — that there is such a thing as fairness, that fairness is bound up in equality, and that it is one of the most important things for everyone to learn.
This is a little bit silly though, right? Sure, we learn all those things in kindergarten. And yes, these are all essential principles of anarchism. ‘Mutual aid’ is not much more than sharing, playing nice and fairness. ‘Voluntary association’ is pretty close to leaving people alone when they want to be left alone. No one needs to explain ‘direct action’ to a kindergartener! They’re already very good at it.
But still: silly! After all, real life isn’t like that. When you become a grown up, these same lessons mean different things. Sharing stops being mutual aid and becomes charity — I.e., The rich give “handouts” to the poor instead of caring for each other as equals. Following the rules stops being about being kind to each other and starts being about making other people money.
These rules are alright for kids, but the real world doesn’t really work that way, does it? Of course not. But shouldn’t it? Shouldn’t we always play fair, share what we have, respect people’s boundaries and live joyful, active, creative lives? Aren’t those lessons that they teach us as children just as good for adults? I think so. Why isn’t life like that, then? I think most people would give a good answer: these are rules for children. Adults create contained utopias for children where they practice these principles, but adults live in a different world. Adults have to work hard and make tough choices so that kids can share and be kind. But eventually, kids have to grow up!
If kindergarten is organized to be fair and safe and fun, adult society is just the opposite. It is often boring, humiliating and dangerous. People touch you without your permission. A handful of greedy people hoard most of the world’s wealth. Only a lucky few folks get to make art all day and even they have to do what their bosses tell them. So it’s impossible to live like a kindergartener in a world like that, and we don’t want kids to know about the tough choices we have to make so they can be safe and happy.
I don’t think that growing up needs to mean giving up on those values. Instead, the question is, what does it mean to be an adult who holds on to those precious lessons? It means applying the values you learned in kindergarten to the adult world. If adults have to worry about money, then an adult anarchist has to worry about how the whole economy is organized! If adults need to contend with danger, then an adult anarchist needs to organize to make their community safer — by keeping the cops out!
Adults hold a responsibility to create a space where kids can learn good values. But why should that responsibility stop at childhood? It seems almost cruel to teach everyone to live in accordance with these beautiful, utopian rules and then throw them out into capitalism to be yelled at by bosses, hassled by cops and exploited by landlords.
So to be a grown up anarchist is to accept responsibility for all of it. To imagine a world where we can live in accordance with our values and to work with our communities to transform our current mess into somewhere we can be safe, happy, and free. I didn’t see “revolution” on that sign in my pediatrician’s office, I admit. But I do think that being an anarchist is about growing up and taking responsibility for the world. Just as long as we don’t forget to be fair, play nice, and always share what we have.
