HappyJMA Wageningen

Hello!

This weekend, one of the founders of Food not Bombs came to our Food not Bombs action! He first helped cutting veggies and cooked a delicious meal for us, and then gave a presentation for everyone who was interested. Kim took care of the promotion of this event; I think she did it really well. Although I did not really do anything, I still have the strong feeling I learned a lot about promoting such an event.

Anyway, this Food not Bombs guy is really special (and quite cool as well). His name is Keith McHenry, and he participated in a lot of actions. The Food not Bombs movement actually is a political-like movement, in America they are considered quite dangerous. They get arrested frequently, not for giving away free food, but for making political statements. And Keith also told us he belongs to the top ten of most dangerous Americans...

Keith came to the Netherlands as a part of the Food not Bombs 30^th anniversary tour. Keith is touring all over the world to give presentations as he did last weekend with us. He is a good speaker, and very enthusiastic. Although the story is actually quite serious, he got everyone laughing time after time.

To me, it was really amazing what Keith has done and experienced. Because Food not Bombs is not very welcome in America (understatement!), he has been in prison a couple of times, has been beaten up regularly, but he never gave up. He just continued fighting (in a non-violent way!) for his ideals. He supports the homeless with nearly everything he does, and he never stops putting his ideas into action. I know I am too much of a coward to go as far as he does, but he really is an inspiring person!

After his presentation, we got some enthusiastic people that want to help us with Food not Bombs, which is really nice as well of course! On Saturday, on of them showed up, and he seems very enthusiastic about Food not Bombs. I think we will see him more often. There were also three new girls. One of them took the same course as I did last period, and I told her about HJW and what we do. That was one of the reasons those girls came. I felt quite good about that J.

Anyway, what I actually want to say, is that this Food not Bombs was very special and really nice!

Happy Green Greetings,

Sandra