Intro from 2025: I see that the Food Not Bombs book I worked on in 1992 is avail­able in the Inter­net Archive. Look­ing through it, I see my pub­lish­er’s note is there. I might as well retroac­tive­ly add it to the blog!

I some­times muse over whether the ostrich isn’t the most apt ani­mal totem of our age. Like that giant bird, so many of us react to prob­lems by tizzy­ing about and shov­ing our heads in the sand. With our sight thus obscured, we hope for some­one to fix our trou­bles for us.

How else to describe our response to the unweav­ing of those social threads that once bound us in the vision of a com­mon human­i­ty? Over the past decade, we’ve seen an alarm­ing rise in pover­ty and hunger, yet so many of us have done so lit­tle. As we step over home­less peo­ple, we demon­strate anew how even the great­est hor­ror can become mun­dane when seen often enough.

We spend hours excus­ing our­selves for our inac­tion, while at the same time blam­ing oth­ers for theirs. We stick our heads in the sand and wait for oth­ers — be they in gov­ern­ment, social work or reli­gion — to come and solve the crises in our communities.

Tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty and action in our com­mu­ni­ty is pre­cise­ly the goal of Food Not Bombs col­lec­tives through­out the coun­try. Food Not Bombs is not about hir­ing pro­fes­sion­als, re-prioritizing the gov­ern­ment, or financ­ing new agen­cies; it is not at all about ask­ing oth­ers to solve our com­mu­ni­ties’ prob­lems. It is about ordi­nary, non-heroic folk empow­er­ing them­selves and com­ing togeth­er around food — the most basic of issues — as a way of pro­vid­ing for one another.

When you sit around a Food Not Bombs table, you get to know peo­ple in a way that does­n’t allow you to eas­i­ly stick your head back into the sand. By lit­er­al­ly break­ing bread with these won­der­ful strangers, you’re chal­lenged to break stereo­types. This is an essen­tial­ly rev­o­lu­tion­ary act.

Some­times I look around the Food Not Bombs table here in Philadel­phia, and dream of a day when we will all take our heads out of the sand. Of a day when we will be able to look each oth­er in the eye and reach out to each oth­er in times of need. Of a day when we will pro­vide our­selves and each oth­er with free food, free hous­ing, free education.

We here at New Soci­ety Pub­lish­ers are proud to be a part of that dream, and proud to offer you Food Not Bombs: How to Feed the Hun­gry and Build Com­mu­ni­ty. Read the book and vis­it — or start! — a Food Not Bombs chap­ter in your town. Maybe you’ll see why I some­times won­der if that dream might not be clos­er than we all think.

Mar­tin Kel­ley
for New Soci­ety Pub­lish­ers
June 29, 1992