How can you make a Neighborhood cooler? What’s ‘cool’ anyway? We believe: when neighbors can support each other. This can only happen, when neighbors know each other. What can you do? The following things have worked in this neighborhood, and here is how you can do it, too!
Kitchen for Everyone
Formerly called “Volxküche” (VoKü for short) in Germany, a Kitchen for All is a kind of soup kitchen operated by self-managed spaces of the leftist scene. The name is derived from “Volksküche,” or people’s kitchens, which are the historical soup kitchens that serve the poor. “Volks” has presumably been changed to “Volx” in order to avoid the negative connotations associated with the far-right’s use of the word. In the late 2010’s, the term has been largely replaced by “KüFA” (Küche für alle = Kitchen for all), to avoid that negative connotation entirely, and to make the queer- and foreigner-friendliness clear.
The autonomous spaces in which a KüFA might be held are pubs, youth clubs, self-managed residential buildings, or one of the few remaining squats. Indeed, KüFAs are considered a vestage of a squat scene that has otherwise withered under mounting political and economic pressure.
KüFAs are usually held weekly in a given location. In a large city, it can be possible to eat in a KüFA every night by knowing where the next one will be held. KüFAs are in general open to the public. While some bear a sign that says “members only,” this is due to legal reasons only.
The food is vegetarian and often vegan. Much of it is donated or purchased at or after expiration dates. Some is recovered from supermarket dumpsters. The food is served for free, but a donation is expected. The convention in the mid-2020’s 3-4 € per meal. For legal reasons, the cashbox is not managed. The food is prepared by unpaid volunteers. In many locations, guests are expected to wash their own dishes. The dishes are a mismatched collection of donated objects.
It’s best if the cooking groups take turns, but some alternative projects do this regularly themselves, each week. The event is usually a dinner, but we’ve also hosted them as Saturday or Sunday brunch.
KüFAs have three noteworthy qualities:
- They are economically viable, despite being technically free.
- At 4 € per meal, a guest eats more cheaply by eating out than eating at home, due to economies of scale.
- KüFAs provide a recurrent excuse for like-minded people to meet and network.
Since 2011, German law requires KüFAs to meet the same health and safety standards as commercial restaurants.
Neighborhood Solidarity (and fire)
In Germany, a rally or standing demonstration needs to be registered. We didn’t march, nor did we choose a street with more possible attention than our direct neighborhood. Our political message was this: We’re pro neighborhood solidarity, and this is only possible if people know each other. We registered a bonfire, which the registration officer didn’t particularly like. We argued that a fire is symbolic for tribes – fire was essential in the evolution of Homo Sapiens, and the meeting point. It attracts humans for practical and social reasons – we argued: it’s crucial for neighborhood bonding to offer a bonfire, a symbolic reminder of what it means to be human. The bonfire was accepted.
Another key feature of the event were stations for kids. The registration officer also didn’t like that. He argued that with the bonfire, the concert and the kids’s stations, it rather sounded like a little festival. No, we argued: In order for parents to be able to participate in democracy, it is crucial that they are able to take their kids along to a political demonstration. It is also critical for democratic education of their kids, to witness their parents participate in democracy, as well as start to participate themselves.
Many neighbors helped us set up the event in our street: Some gave us electricity for our mini bouncy castle, others helped at the kid’s stations, other lent us materials.
At the kids’ stations, the kids were invited to draw their own banners. After that, we showed them how adults ‘fight for their rights’: by stamping their feet, shouting what they want, and showing their banners.
But you, you are going to be smarter, when you grow up. Because if you just stamp your feet, other people get to make the decisions. What you are going to do, is go to school and educate yourselves. You will be able to make your own decisions, and to act yourself!
That’s what we told them
During the event, we gave five speeches:
PR Responsibility – if alternative projects reject Social Media, we’re out of the picture. The only narrative out there is the mainstream narrative.
Weirdest Faustian Bargain – we’ve made a very weird trade for our modern comforts…
Alternative Culture Attrition – why are there so few older people in alternative projects?
Facebook Crisis – what the Facebook Crisis reveals
Mastodon Social Media Network – it’s time to move to non-commercial, decentralized social media networks
Clothes Swap
People can bring clothes they don’t want to use anymore, but which are clean and still usable. You can leave stuff, you can take stuff. What happens in our hyper-consumerist society is that in the end, we have a heap of clothes. Whether we donate or keep them, we always end up with more every time. All the more important is this very popular event: We need ways to re-use instead of buying more and more stuff. Pizza Lab hosted these kinds of events.
Open Box Day
Randomly, people in our city already set out give-away boxes in front of their house every once in a while. But we thought: if we organized and did it all on the same day, then people could go for a walk on our street and choose things from different places. So with flyers, we invited neighbors to set out open boxes on a specific date with things that are still usable, too good to throw away and that they are willing to gift to neighbors. And so it happened! Lots of people showed up, and lots of boxes where seen on the street.
If you copy this: Don’t forget to invite/remind people on the flyers to also remove the left overs after the day is over. Everyone wants a generous neighborhood, but nobody a trashed one!