Friends for Food — F3
Imagine this: you are heading down a dirt road at a rather uncomfortable speed, bouncing from side to side in the backseat of a multi-colored auto-rickshaw. Your driver, undoubtedly a former Indie Racecar Driver in another life, zigzags between the cows, scooters carrying a family of five, wild dogs, buses with people sitting on the roof, and rogue oncoming traffic, creating an enormous cloud of dust on an inconceivably narrow two-way road. The dust mixes with the sweat dripping down your forehead from the 100+ heat and humidity, giving you the appearance of having come from working in a mine.
Finally, after jumping a type of curb, your driver announces that you have arrived at your destination. Well, that was my first experience in Thirumalaikodi, India, in 2005.
I slowly got out of the tuk-tuk, looking for something to hold onto, feeling as if I had been on a boat that had been tossed about for several hours on a rough sea. After regaining my equilibrium, I looked up and read the words “Food Hall” painted above the door of a nondescript cement building, with a line of people stretching as far as the eye could see.
Upon entering, I immediately noticed that there were no tables; in fact, there was no flooring. The dry dirt floor was covered with burlap bags and settings for about 50 people. When I say settings, I mean banana leaves, which I soon discovered were used as plates, not placements as I had originally thought. To the right of each leaf was a small tin cup for water. The only other items found in this stark, beige room, somewhat cooled by three noisy ceiling fans, were two statues: Ganesh and Shiva.
A young Australian guy promptly greeted me and brought me directly to the kitchen where I learned my job was to carry a pail separated into two parts, one for white rice and the other for Dhal. I was to put a scoop of rice on the banana leaf, make an indentation with the ladle, and then pour some Dhal, which seemed more like dirty water than the Dhal I was familiar with. After asking about the consistency, he explained that the only way they were able to feed so many people a week was to stretch the rations as much as possible.
This experience was nothing less than awe-inspiring. As the doors opened, people filed in, literally drenched from standing outside in the heat for hours to get a spot before the food ran out. I remember how peaceful they all looked, sitting cross-legged in front of their banana leaf, waiting patiently for me to serve them.
I dished out the portions as I had been instructed, knowing the rations had been measured for exactly 200 people. Each guest used their hands to eat due to the lack of cutlery.
Why is all this awe-inspiring, you may ask? Because almost every person, with the most genuine smile on their face, lifted their hand to offer me the first helping. Probably their only meal of the day, something they waited hours for, and yet they were generous enough to offer me part of their ration.
My wife and I were first introduced to India by her integrative oncologist during her battle with breast cancer for her emotional and mental health. She would volunteer in a local Indian hospital, and I in the food hall. These trips shifted our perspective on everything, resulting in deep conversations about the meaning of life, self-actualization, giving back, gratitude, and legacy.
I do not know about you, but I grew up hearing a few things when I was younger:
- You should not judge anyone if you have not walked in their shoes
- Eat everything on your plate because there are people starving in the world
Upon returning to America after that first trip, we evaluated those two powerful lessons after my having experienced such generosity in the food hall. A question soon formed in my mind: “What if we use the feeling of hunger as motivation to do something about it? What if we walk in the shoes of those who are hungry?”
“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” — Mother Teresa
By that time, “fasting” had entered conventional thinking and was something we periodically practiced as part of her integrative fight against breast cancer. Undergoing chemotherapy, she could not truly fast and ate three small bowls of rice during her fast. I would fast completely. We did feel much more energized and understood why fasting was becoming a mainstream practice. But imagine feeling those hunger pains all the time?
It was then that Friends for Food (F3) was born. It is not a charity but a movement, a concept, a philosophy. What if you took that feeling of hunger and used it to motivate yourself to end hunger? Its mission is straightforward: “choosing to be periodically hungry to rid the world of hunger.
Steps:
- Find a jar, box, or can. Personalize it if you are a creative person.
- Place it somewhere visible.
- Choose a fasting routine that feels best for you.
- The day you fast, calculate what you normally would have spent on food and place that amount in your jar, box, or can.
You will soon realize, over time, that you have a nice sum of money put aside. Go to a food bank, a church, donate it to a food charity, or wait until the holidays to buy meals for others. You decide where you want the money to flow. We would buy proper Thanksgiving meals for families.
What has prompted me to share this with you now?
First, when the COVID outbreak began, I was shocked that even in the USA there are an unbelievable amount of people who do not have enough food.
Second, I realized how much money my friends and I were saving not buying our daily Starbucks or going out and thought to myself, “Maybe F3 can evolve into something more. Forgo something every once and a while and then use the money you saved to help others.”
F3 was originally based on feeling empathy for someone who was hungry by being hungry yourself. But perhaps we can use this perspective to do so much more.
“There’s enough on this planet for everyone’s needs but not for everyone’s greed.” Mohandas Gandhi
