Occupy Forum presents: Beloved Community: Radical Volunteerism in theAge of Neglect

Occupy Forum presents...


Beloved Community:

Radical Volunteerism in theAge of Neglect



Keith McHenry and Father River Sims


Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!


The effects of the right wing revolution in this country first became obvious in the 1980s. With social programs being slashed and the number of homeless multiplying, a growing number of people organized radical volunteer groups that still exist today.



Keith McHenry is the co founder of Food Not Bombs, which was started in Boston to support anti-nuclear activists. The second chapter was founded in San Francisco in 1988, and immediately led to people being arrested for serving free food outdoors. After eight years and hundreds of arrests under two mayors, this consensus-based organization wore out its attackers, and the arrests stopped. In addition to serving the poor and homeless, Food not Bombs served at many protests and political gatherings. Keith McHenry has not lived in San Francisco for decades, but he has continued to organize more chapters of Food Not Bombs and to risk arrest. Food Not Bombs still serves in San Francisco, alongside many more mainstream organizations that had previously been afraid to do it, because of the risk of arrest.



As a radical priest in the Catholic Worker tradition, Father River Sims felt called to serve the neglected and stigmatized people of Polk Street. He gave everything from soup and socks to condoms and clean needles to the homeless, runaways, sex workers and drug addicts of the lower Polk Gulch, as well as counseling and ministerial presence. Founding the Temanos Catholic Workers, he practices "Radical Harm Reduction" and has called himself a "Punk Priest." Despite the gentrification of Polk Street, River Sims and the Temanos Catholic Worker also continues. Both organizations welcome volunteers.



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