THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, JULY 23, 2012
PAGE 15
COMMUNITY
Students start program chapter to help
JESSICA TIERNEY
editor@kansan.com
Students are helping the homeless by starting a new organization downtown.
Students are feeding the poor and fighting the corporations by creating a chapter of Food Not Bombs.
When city officials recently announced plans to buy the Salvation Army building on 10th and New Hampshire streets, a group of students and community members decided to start a local chapter of the Food Not Bombs organization and began hosting their own free dinner on Thursday evenings in South Park, at the corner of Massachusetts Street and North Park Drive.
"It is a really simple concept that I think a lot of people can get behind," said Claire Kerwin, a senior from St. Louis and a founding member of Lawrence's chapter of Food Not Bombs.
Though the Salvation Army still hosts a dinner service at their downtown location, the organization plans to move to a new building along Haskell Avenue within the next year or two. Members of Food Not Bombs feel that the need for the homeless is concentrated downtown and want to make sure this need is answered.
Food Not Bombs is a global movement and a group of independent collectives that began in the 1980s. Though city chapters operate separately, they all share the same concept: free vegetarian meals for all in need and spreading awareness of what they feel are corporate and government policies that allow hunger to persist, even in the wealthiest of countries.
"In my mind, our goals are operating on two different levels."
said founding member Gus Bova, a junior from Lawrence. "We want to facilitate a good meal to people who attend, but we also want to get people thinking about the society they're a part of."
Kerwin and Bova began organizing in the early days of June. What started as a group on Facebook turned into meetings at The Merth and eventually the first meal on June 21.
Attendance has slowly been growing throughout the summer. About 50 people showed up to the first event, and since then, attendance has varied to between 60 and 70 people, Kerwin said.
"The meals are made by donations from the ECM (Ecumenical Christian Ministries) and other produce donated throughout the city," said Heath Poland, another founding member of the Lawrence chapter. "We're also going to be putting up boxes for food donations downtown at Fuzzy's Tacos and Third Planet."
For other students who would like to get involved, both Kerwin and Bova say simply attending the dinners is the first step. Informal meetings are often held near the end of the meal and those interested can volunteer to pick up food donations, cook the food at the ECM, and help with cleanup.
For now, the dinners will continue to be served on Thursday evenings at 6:30. Kerwin would like to expand the group in the months ahead, with both free meals and events.
Edited by Megan Hinman
"Eventually, we'd like to do it more than once a week."
JESSICA JANASZ/KANSAN
Claire Kerwin, right, a senior from St. Louis, Mo., eats a vegetarian meal during a Food Not Bombs meeting at South Park on Thursday, July 19. Food Not Bombs aims to feed the poor and started in June.
WEATHER
Governor calls for more federal disaster assistance
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOPEKA, Kan. - Gov. Sam Brownback has asked for federal disaster declarations for 37 more counties hit by drought, heat, high winds and wildfires.
The governor's office said Friday he's asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to declare 37 more counties disasters, making farmers there eligible for USDA disaster assistance programs.
The request includes Atchison, Brown, Chase, Cherokee, Clay, Cloud, Dickinson, Doniphan, Douglas, Ellis, Ellsworth, Franklin, Geary, Jackson, Jefferson, Jewell, Johnson, Leavenworth, Lincoln, Marion, Miami, Mitchell, Morris, Nemaha, Osage, Osborne, Ottawa, Pottawatomie, Republic, Riley,
If the 37 are approved, that would mean 103 of the state's 105 counties are primary federal disaster areas. The two that are not, Marshall and Washington, border primary counties and would receive disaster declarations as contiguous counties.
Rush, Russell, Saline, Shawnee, Smith, Wabaunsee and Wyandotte.
A cow looks for something to eat as it grazes in a dry pasture southwest of Hays, Kan., on July 6. The nation's widest drought in decades is spreading. More than half of the continental U.S. is now in some stage of drought, and most of the rest is abnormally dry.
ASSOCIATED PRESS