Newsday: "Group fosters sharing food with the needy"

Check out this awesome article by Newsday about the Long Island Food Not Bombs Hempstead Food Share. Here is an excerpt, "Every Sunday afternoon, Food Not Bombs sets up a small folding table near the parking lot at the Hempstead train station, a site chosen because of the large number of people who walk by. The group brings not only food, but also new shoes, clothing, seedlings and vitamins -- all of it obtained through donations -- to distribute to people who need it."

First one, then two and three giant plastic bags filled with loaves of bread went into Alex Witkowski's silver hatchback. After the bread came bags of fruit -- oranges, bananas, strawberries. Then muffins. Bagels. Scones.

The food likely would have gone in the trash if it had not gone in the car.

Witkowski, 23, is part of Long Island Food Not Bombs, a loose do-it-yourself association of mostly 20-somethings who take discarded food from grocery stores and distribute it to people in need.

The food Witkowski and his friends picked up from a Trader Joe's and a Whole Foods Market that Sunday was destined for hungry people in Hempstead.

"There's all this excess food that just kind of goes to waste all the time," Witkowski, a social worker who lives in Huntington, said. "Seems a shame for it to go to waste when people out there need it."

Despite the group's small number (about 12) and informal tactics -- members make food runs in their own cars, and their only expense is gas -- Long Island Food Not Bombs estimates that it has made a big difference.

"We don't spend any money here," said Jon Stepanian, 24, a graphic designer who lives in Huntington. "We're just a bunch of kids." Last year, he said, they gave out "more than 125,000 pounds of food."

Donations were hearty on that Sunday. The strawberries, marked $5.99, had nary a speck of mold, and the dozens of bags of organically grown potatoes that Whole Foods donated -- enough to fill a shopping cart to the brim -- were only beginning to sprout eyes.

The donated food is safe and perfectly edible, but not up to the high standards of the store, said Chris Ivers, marketing team leader at the Whole Foods Market in Jericho, which gives food to the group every week.

"We're not going to give them something that's rotten or not fit for consumption," Ivers said.

Donations at the station
Every Sunday afternoon, Food Not Bombs sets up a small folding table near the parking lot at the Hempstead train station, a site chosen because of the large number of people who walk by. The group brings not only food, but also new shoes, clothing, seedlings and vitamins -- all of it obtained through donations -- to distribute to people who need it.

On this particular Sunday in June, 40 people holding empty plastic grocery bags waited patiently as the volunteers carried the food to the table.

"Garlic bread sticks?" Stepanian called out, holding the bread aloft and scanning the crowd for a taker. An arm reached for it, and Stepanian moved on.

"Sliced white bread?"

Other volunteers handed out individual potatoes, onions, oranges and bananas. One boy stood holding a bag of vegetables he'd just received. "Tengo una cena -- I have a dinner," he said, raising the bag and smiling.

Bertha Chan, 40, of Hempstead said she's been visiting the Food Not Bombs table each week for about three months.

'Little bit of love'
That day, she said, she received breads, vegetables "and a little bit of love." "Oh, it helps so much," Chan said. "It really does, for a person who doesn't have enough money."

As the rush of the crowd ebbed, Stepanian brought out a large pot filled with a pasta and bean dish he had made that morning for the occasion. People took turns spooning food into paper bowls and handing it to one another, and helping themselves to unsweetened iced tea in a large cooler.

The group gives out only vegetarian food, most of it organic, in an effort to appeal to the broadest range of people.

"One of the founding principles of Food Not Bombs was to give out vegetarian foods," Stepanian said. "A lot of people in poor neighborhoods don't have access to healthier foods. And some ethnic groups don't eat milk or meat."

Long Island Food Not Bombs is one of hundreds of chapters of a national movement that started in Massachusetts in 1980. Its credo -- that food is a human right -- has buoyed groups from coast to coast. Although some chapters focus on cooking food and distributing hot meals to people who are homeless, others, like the Long Island group, concentrate on distributing groceries to people who have homes, but can't always afford food.

"The way we see it, a hot meal will get someone through one day, and groceries will get them through a whole week," Stepanian said.

Lisa Wendel, 49, of Greenlawn, has been volunteering nearly every weekend since February, hauling potatoes and other foods in the back of her silver SUV. She said she enjoys meeting the people who receive the food.

"I wanted to give back in another way than making a donation," said Wendel, a school nurse. "It's easier to write a check than to come out on a Sunday afternoon."

And for the grocery stores, Food Not Bombs is an ideal way to avoid wasting good food that must be taken off the shelves.

"You can't sell it, and there's nothing else to do with it," said a manager at the Trader Joe's in Plainview, who did not want to be named. "There's no organized, cost-effective way to get it to anywhere else."

Movement is growing
Within the last month, more chapters of Food Not Bombs have sprung up locally. Now volunteers distribute food Monday mornings in Mastic Beach and Tuesday evenings in Huntington. Meanwhile, the original group, based in Hempstead, plans a community garden there filled with sunflowers that leech contaminants from soil, as well as something they've dubbed the Peach Tree Project -- in which members will sprout peach trees from seeds and give them to Hempstead residents to grow.

But don't call this a do-gooder group.

"We really do believe food should be free, and it's kind of a right," Stepanian said. "You wouldn't say the ACLU is donating civil liberties to people in need. The ACLU is standing up for civil liberties. We're not donating free food. We're standing up for the right to have food."

From: Newsday.com
newsday.com/community/news/northshoresuffolk/huntington/ny-lifood0712,0,3393319.story

Group fosters sharing food with the needy
BY JENNIFER BARRIOS
jennifer.barrios@newsday.com
7:25 AM EDT, July 11, 2008