Our story It began in a foreign country in Western Europe. It was the summer of 2018. We made a move and later, another decision that would change our lives f o r e v e r. The city was Berlin. The year was 2017, in the … Read more...
We are new Toronto Food Not Bombs volunteers
We were first introduced to Food Not Bombs in the summer of 2017 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Our Couchsurfing host and friend invited us to volunteer at a Sunday afternoon gathering organized by Food Not Bombs Sofia.
It took place in a spacious wooden bungalow, where we had the overwhelming pleasure of meeting friendly and interesting people. Many of these volunteers felt strongly about veganism, food-waste, and helping people in need. Some were activists, others were not. And yet, we were all shared the common goal of getting nutritious food on the table, as we prepped and cooked veggie/vegan food to serve the impoverished community.
Our new vegan friend, an athletic weight trainer on a mission to show the world that muscles and veganism go hand in hand, was thrilled to have us there and so were we! He explained that there’s an opportunity to attend and volunteer at this event every Sunday. He added that Sofia Food Not Bombs also provides clothes, shoes, and other supplies to those in need. It is also crucial that they rent out the house to others when not in use, for income to accomplish their aim to help more people in need.
Fast forward to 2020, just a few weeks ago, Food Not Bombs, re-entered our lives. This time, across the globe in a different global climate. This time, in the city of Toronto.
What is Food Not Bombs?
”Food Not Bombs is an all-volunteer movement that recovers food that would otherwise be discarded, and shares free vegan and vegetarian meals with the hungry in over 1,000 cities in 65 countries in protest to war, poverty, and destruction of the environment. ”We are not a charity but dedicated to taking nonviolent direct action. Our movement has no headquarters, positions of leadership and we use the process of consensus to make decisions. We also provide food and supplies to the survivors of natural disasters, and people participating in occupations, strikes, marches and other protests.” PLEASE MAKE A DONATION TODAY
The above text and image below are taken from FoodNotBombs.net
Food Not Bombs is a global movement
How we became Toronto Food Not Bombs volunteers
Through a whirlwind of bref interactions initiated by Kerly, we became fast volunteers. We ended up taking over the sandwich duty for Toronto Food Not Bombs.
Through our food saving work, we contacted the Toronto Food Not Bombs team, and one passionate volunteer arrived to pick up the donated food.
After a passionate conversation and crash course of the work that our contact at Toronto Food Not Bombs is involved with, he casually asked a million dollar question:
Paraphrasing here…
”Would you be interested in making the sandwiches, as the current volunteers are returning to work and will be unavailable in 2 weeks? ”
Truth be told, once this question hit the air, we simply could not get it off our minds, but we also knew that as vegans, it would be a ”creative challenge” as our contact worded it.
Making sandwiches (as simple as it sounds) for the hungry is after all in alignment with our mission at Vegan Very Much.
Our Mission at Vegan Very Much
C r e a t e
As humans, we are creators who are capable of bringing brilliant ideas to life.
Co m p a s s i o n
Veganism is compassionate for both animals (especially factory farm animals), as well as the environment. This extends to showing compassion toward one another, as in treat others as you would like to be treated.
C o m m u n i t y
It is our intent to connect with you and create a community of not only like/minds, but also like-hearts.
As a vegan website focused on low-impact and living a less wasteful life, we abhor food waste! We agree that ”food-waste is of the world’s dumbest problem.”
The creative challenge
The goal is to make 100 sandwiches (give or take) quite a small budget. Toronto Food Not Bombs distributes these to houseless and underprivileged people in Downtown Toronto. The location is Allan Gardens (outside the Botanical Garden) on Sundays at 11 am. Packages of food are also handed out during this time.
12 Loaves of bread feeds 100
First off, we enlisted the help of café Serano (Serano Bakery) to slice the twelve loaves of Cobs Bread donated bread to Toronto Food Not Bombs. We quite simply could not make the sandwiches without them and of course our TFNB partners and donors.
According to a volunteer who picks up the bread from the bakery and delivers it all, the company aims to bake an excess of over $1000 worth of products so that they are able to donate to communities who need it most! Support them with your purchases; most of their breads and baked goods are vegan!
cobsbread.com
Week one sandwiches for Toronto Food Not Bombs: chickpea fritters
Week one’s sandwich is inspired by a food expert whose amazing and simple recipe the fritters were based on. He was kind and patient enough to walk us through the process of how he makes his chickpea fritters, answering numerous questions and giving advice based on our many adaptations to the original gem.
Apart from walking us through every step of how to make the perfect chickpea fritters, our food expert told us about Toronto Food Not Cops. This movement feeds the houseless in the city delicious and nutritious vegan food!
Here are some of the images of the process captured with a phone camera by Kerly, (Kerly Ilves Photography)
How can you support the work of Food Not Bombs?
- Donate If you can give back in this way, donate to your local chapter of Food Not Bombs. If you reside in Toronto, you can donate to Toronto FNB You can also donate to the global chapter PLEASE MAKE A DONATION TODAY
- Both individuals and companies can donate monetarily and/or in-kind (supplies, groceries, food, etc.)
- Volunteer at Toronto Food Not Bombs or your local chapter
- Find out if Food Not Bombs in your city, if not, mobilize the community to create a chapter
- If you live in Toronto or the GTA, contact TFNB to volunteer, as many more of us are needed, now more than ever! Website, Facebook, Instagram
- Donate food that you don’t want or need to FNB to provide free meals to disadvantaged people.
- If you are vegan and interested in supporting our sandwich making workshop on Saturdays, please contact us.
- Do you have delicious budget-friendly sandwich ideas for the Toronto Food Not Bombs sandwich team? Comment below, DM us on Instagram or contact us on this site.
Share your thoughts:
What do you think of the work that the grassroots organization Food Not Bombs is doing across the global chapters?
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