The anti-poverty group Food Not Bombs rallied outside of the Student Union on Thursday – but with no food in hand.
The volunteers advertised their organization through signs and word of mouth in order to gain more followers.
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“We aren’t serving food because we don’t want to take away from the efforts downtown,” Thomas Hellinger, a student and chair of governmental affairs in the UCF Senate, said. Hellinger, who was released from jail Thursday morning, said that it’s important for students to learn about the organization.
“We need students to know that the city of Orlando has made it a criminal act to serve food to people who need it,” Hellinger said.
The organization gathers twice a week at Lake Eola park and provides vegan meals to the public. A food ordinance enforced by Buddy Dyer limits groups who feed more than 25 people at a time to two permits per year at each park within a two-mile radius of City Hall.
During Thursday’s demonstration, the students were asked to stand in the designated “free-speech” area in front of the Student Union but were not kicked off campus since they were only handing out fliers.
The fliers, which contained phone numbers to Buddy Dyer’s office, were handed out to tour groups of potential UCF students.
“It’s weird not being from here and walking into this,” Krystal Cunningham, a visitor from West Palm Beach, said.
The group has a worldwide following, but Thursday’s protest was mostly made up of students.
“Our tax dollars should be going toward the homeless, not arresting people who are just trying to help,” Conner McKelvey, a sophomore sociology major, said.
“As a staff member, I support this and what the students have done to help the feeding downtown,” said UCF faculty member Jay Jurie who says he does not live in fear of loosing his job.
Other than UCF faculty and students, religious groups such as the United Church of Christ and Islam Inc. were at the protest to support the feedings.
Even though the protest brought supporters together, no donations were collected during the protest. Generally the group collects donations at events and also through their website, but they decided Thursday’s demonstration was solely for awareness.
“The donations help us get food to feed people,” Fawn Bolack, a junior psychology student, said. “We help the people who are turned away by other organizations and kitchens,” Bolack said.
Twelve members of Food Not Bombs have been arrested in the area, including co-founder Jonathon “Keith” McHenry who has been arrested over 150 times for the same offense – feeding the homeless.
“Orlando is unique because of the ordinance. I’m in the process of researching the possibilities of taking our case to the Supreme Court,” McHenry said. “Because of colleges like UCF, we are gaining protesters from all over the world,” McHenry said.