The students are members of the USC chapter of Food Not Bombs (FNB), a non-profit organization that combines radical politics with public service to provide food for the homeless and protesters across the country. Each Saturday they head to Exposition Park, which hugs the southeast boarder of the USC campus, to serve vegetarian food to the hungry.

The familiar jingle of an ice cream cart's bells echos above the laughter and shrieks of afternoon play in the park. Families bike and stroll through the cement paths criss-crossing the grass. In the center playground a mother watches her children tangle themselves in jungle gyms and whizz down slides, a stroller adorned with orange and yellow balloons at her side. But the perimeters of the lawn shed light on a different face of South Los Angeles. Many of the people sprawled out across the lawn are not picnic-goers lounging on gingham blankets. They are the homeless, sleeping on piles of newspapers.

The FNB volunteers hang hand-drawn banners advertising free food outside the park's entrances and on the metal gazebo where they have unpacked the day's meal -- their staple vegetable soup, a few-dozen loaves of bread, roasted potatoes and a green salad speckled with carrots and home-made croutons, all made from ingredients donated by local farm vendors and shop owners.

Then they wait.

There is no shortage of hungry people in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles County Department of Health estimates that 417,000 households in the county experienced low food security in 2005. And it's not just the homeless who are flocking to food banks and soup kitchens -- the worsening economy is forcing many working families to seek assistance just to put food on the table. According to the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, the number of households served at local foodbanks increased 41 percent from September 2007 to September 2008.

The aroma of stew and potatoes wafts through the park. A man with weathered skin and a blue Dodgers cap takes a bowl of stew and salad and retreats to a nearby table to eat. Soon after, an ice-cream vendor stops to refuel with a hearty meal. But traffic at the table is anything but steady, even in the heart of one of Los Angeles' poorest communities.

Charlie Furman, one of the founders of the USC chapter, takes his bicycle for a spin around the city blocks encompassing the park to spread the word that an abundance of "damn good" hot food is just a few minutes' walk away.

He reports back that everyone he spoke to was "really graciously and genuinely interested," but most seemed unlikely to wander into the park.

"It makes them uncomfortable to come in with all the families here," he explains.

Herein lies one of the logistical challenges of operating off-the-grid and outside the mainstream networks of government-funded nonprofits serving the city's poor. Keeping with its decentralized, anarchist roots, chapters of Food Not Bombs, which was founded in 1980s by a group of anti-nuclear activists, do not obtain permits or licenses to distribute food. They are funded solely by donations and have few means of spreading awareness of their altruism. There is no e-mail listserv or message board for the hungry and homeless; the group must rely on word of mouth to spread the word that they will be at Exposition Park each week.

"When we first came I think they didn't think we were going to be regular and consistent," says Elisabeth Gustafson, who has tried distributing flyers at nearby soup kitchens to spread awareness. "They didn't think we were dependable."

Gustafson says she is encouraged that Food Not Bombs have been able to begin to build relationships and trust with some who do return each week for a meal.  

"They were born from their mother's womb to cook this food," Douglas, a homeless man who receives a meal most Saturdays from Food Not Bombs, says as two volunteers bring a bowl of soup and a slab of bread to his spot atop a pile of newspapers a few hundred feet from the serving station. "You have been blessing me for the last three months, and so I will bless you back."

The group of 20-somethings serving food spends the spans between visitors tossing out ideas for new locations, plotting publicity tactics (wheatpasting is the preferred method of flyering) and arguing over who in the group best exemplifies the term "hipster." 

"I really think it would be a good idea not to be in a back corner," Furman says, clearly exasperated. But their lack of permits to serve food makes it difficult to set up shop in more visible and highly trafficked areas outside the park's borders. 

Gustafson, who says she joined Food Not Bombs when her volunteer work distributing sack lunches just "didn't seem like it was enough," carries bowls of stew to those sleeping in the far corners of the park. The volunteers beckon to passer-bys to come and dig in. Most shoot them quizzical glances -- "Who, me? Homeless?" -- or ignore the calls and walk on. 

As the afternoon winds on, the time between visitors grows. 

But soon a familiar family wanders over from the wood chips surrounding a nearby swing set. The volunteers rush to fill bowls of stew, salad and potatoes for the children, who giggle and gush about how they like carrots and other "good-for-you" foods.

Their mother, still pushing her stroller and bouquet of orange and yellow balloons, smiles and thanks the volunteers. The children eat their meals and rush back for seconds and thirds.

 

The family had been on the playground for more than an hour before asking for a meal. It would have been easy to assume they were just another group enjoying a leisurely afternoon at the park. But, as the Food Not Bombs volunteers point out, hunger is an invisible affliction.

"Food and the ability to eat is a human right," Furman says. "There is so much food out there that everyone should be able to eat."