No One Eats Alone

Some weeks give you a clearer picture of the work you’ve been doing all along.

This week, I’ve been trying to find the words for something I’ve known for a long time.

When I first became involved in this work in 2015, there wasn’t enough food. That was the problem in front of me. People needed to eat, and there was food that could be rescued, prepared and shared. So we got on with it.

Sometimes, the simplest response is the one that makes the most sense.

But over the years, the work has become about more than getting food from one place to another. I’ve come to see the Shared Table at Food Not Bombs Hobart as something more than a meal. It is a place where people come together and participate in their community.

We cook with rescued food and make a safe, welcoming table where no one is turned away.

No one eats alone.

That line has stayed with me this week.

The story behind the food

There has been a lot happening around the story of Food Not Bombs Hobart. Foodbank Tasmania has been helping tell it through a documentary, and there has been interest in taking that story further, including a possible opportunity to speak in Canberra.

It has made me think about what it means to tell the story of food insecurity.

We can talk about kilograms of food rescued, meals served, families supported and volunteers involved. These numbers matter. They tell us something about the scale of the work, and they help make the case for doing more.

But the numbers don’t tell the whole story.

I’m interested in what happens when people gather around food. What changes when someone can come to a table without having to explain themselves, prove their circumstances or feel ashamed of needing a meal?

Fear, stress and shame are part of food insecurity, too. They don’t necessarily disappear when someone receives a bag of groceries. And the answer isn’t always another service or another set of instructions.

Sometimes, it starts with being welcomed.

A table is a small part of society

I’ve been thinking about the Shared Table as a place where people practise being part of society.

Actually, practise might not be quite the right word. It can sound as though we’re rehearsing for something that will happen later.

We’re not.

This is society, happening now.

People prepare food, serve one another, sit together, talk, disagree, help out and find their place. Someone who came for a meal might become someone who helps cook. Someone who needs support might have something important to offer another person.

We don’t have to wait until every social problem is solved to begin creating the kind of community we want to live in.

We can start here, with the food available to us and the people who turn up.

It is a small example, certainly. But I think it tells us something about what a healthy society might look like: not simply whether people can access services, but whether they have opportunities to belong, contribute and be recognised as people.

The work is bigger than one person

This week has also reminded me how much of this work depends on other people.

The food rescue, the cooking, the donations, the volunteers, the partnerships and the people who quietly make things happen. One contribution might be a regular delivery of food. Another might be a bag of potatoes, a clean tent, some reusable bags or a handful of coins.

Fundraising and donations are not separate from the work. They are part of how it happens.

We need people who can collect useful things, businesses willing to contribute, and community members who see a need and decide they can do something about it.

We also need to keep finding ways for people to participate beyond the traditional idea of volunteering. That is part of what interests me about our craft work through Woodcraft Adventures Tasmania, where making small wooden animals and experimenting with accessible woodcraft workshops can create other opportunities for people to use their skills and take part.

Not every contribution looks the same. Not every person comes to the community with the same abilities, resources or circumstances.

A community becomes stronger when there is room for all of that.

What I am learning

As I prepare to tell this story to people beyond Hobart, I keep coming back to the same thought.

I don’t want to tell a story in which people experiencing hardship are simply the problem, and organisations like ours are the solution.

That would miss something important.

The people who come to the Shared Table are already part of our community. The work is not about bringing them into society from the outside. It is about making room for people who are too often left outside its ordinary routines and relationships.

Food gives us a reason to gather. What we do together gives that gathering meaning.

I started with a straightforward observation: there wasn’t enough food.

I still believe we need to respond to that need, practically and urgently. But I now see the work as an opportunity to do something else at the same time: to build the connections, habits and relationships that help people live together.

We don’t need to make grand claims about what one shared meal can achieve.

We just need to keep showing up, keep the table open, and keep finding ways for people to take part.

Because food is never just about what is on the plate.

Sometimes, it is about whether there is a place for you at the table.

We’re here, so no one has to face that alone.

Christiaan McCann
Food Not Bombs Hobart | Notes From the Field