Community Eats, an offshoot of Sprouts, runs a weekly by-donation bring-your-own-container lunch and produce pick-up service currently taking place on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm land in the Walter Gage Residence, Student Union Boulevard on Fridays from 11:30 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. We ask that you donate what you can and take what seems fair – individuals with significant financial barriers need not explain themselves, we are here for you first and foremost.
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Community Eats is a fresh food search-and-rescue initiative. Our mission is to seek out quality food that is about to be needlessly wasted and destroy the financial barriers that keep fresh and nutritious foods out of the hands of people who need it. We’ve seen the astounding amount of food that goes to waste, and are actively pursuing a better life for this food–much of it is being wasted because it isn’t pretty enough, or because there’s one bad apple in the bunch. We think this is wrong.
We believe that having access to safe and nutritious food is a human right. We cannot allow hundreds of pounds of food to be wasted daily while our neighbours go hungry. Corporate interests would rather see good food (and, by association, the land that was used to produce it) go to waste and bellies go hungry than lose the profit margin they’ve come to expect from the industry. Nobody should be prevented from sustenance, least of all from lack of funds, when we have more than enough available to feed us all. We believe that if stakeholders at all levels of the food system cared more about making sure food is eaten and less about ensuring they earn a premium on every bite taken, our food system would be more socially just and less ecologically destructive.
This year, we’re trying something new. We want to do more than just feed those who know about us, those who come to us. We want to bring food directly to the people, to your communities. What better way to combat food insecurity and waste within the city than by partnering with organizations and communities that have hungry members? Community Eats challenges the established paradigm of the industrial food system and hopes to change it for the collective good of our planet, global community and non-human kin. In a food system that values profit over diet, giving away food for free is a revolutionary act. And that is exactly what we are here to do: feed the revolution.
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Want to get involved, collaborate, or simply learn more? Email communityeats@ubcsprouts.ca, or come break bread with us on Friday and ask us then.
