Food brings people, and global consciousness, to the table at Bonnaroo
All photos and writing in this piece come from Elizabeth Olson, Community Engagement Intern for Oxfam America
A few weeks ago, Oxfam America returned to Bonnaroo, the legendary four-day music and arts festival in Manchester, Tennessee (June 9–12). Oxfam has worked with Bonnaroo for 9 years and our presence at the festival has gradually expanded every year since the beginning. This was my first time at Bonnaroo, but not my first music festival.
For four years, Oxfam has been collaborating with nonprofit Eat for Equity to host BonnaROOTS community dinners. BonnaROOTS dinners are held for three consecutive nights in Planet Roo, Bonnaroo’s sustainability and global consciousness center. Each participant is seated at one very long table and encouraged to talk to their neighbors while enjoying a southern heritage-inspired meal. The four-course meal is designed using Oxfam’s Five Principles for Feeding the Planet, simple tips any consumer can use to fight hunger from their kitchen table. Almost all of the ingredients for BonnaROOTS are sourced from small farmers within 100 miles of Manchester, TN. The Cheddar Pimento of the first course was sourced from Sequatchie Cove Farm, a diversified 300-acre farm just 50 miles southeast. All of the greens, root crops, flowers and herbs that comprised the second course salad came from the Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program in Nashville. And get this: the buttermilk of the Berry Buttermilk Pie (dessert!) is made the old-fashioned way — hand-churned by the Cruze Farm girls from pasture-raised Jersey cow milk. A handful of musicians stopped by the Oxfam/Eat for Equity chopping station to prepare vegetables for the dinner, including alternative hip hop artist Lizzo, bluegrass star Sara Watkins, and Chris Vos of the rock band The Record Company.
The Eat for Equity mission is to build a culture of generosity by hosting community feasts, facilitating dialogue, and encouraging people to donate what they can for a just cause. At BonnaROOTS dinners, seeing 150 people gathered around a table talking about social justice was nothing short of inspiring. At each dinner, Oxfam and Eat for Equity assigned roughly ten people to act as “hosts,” facilitating dialogue and helping to grow a sense of community among participants. Some were Oxfam or Eat for Equity volunteers and staff, but many of the hosts were representatives from other nonprofits in Planet Roo. I hosted a dinner on the third and most unique night where instead of a four-course meal, participants were served a cheese platter and grilled bread around the World’s Longest Salad.* Before taking a seat at the table, I was briefed on how to host a BonnaROOTS dinner: make sure people are talking to each other, bring up the importance of community building, and talk about Oxfam if the conversation sways in that direction. To my delight, the role was not even necessary. I was seated nearby three couples, two of whom quickly discovered that both were from Kansas City. The other couple was from Nashville and had been coming to Bonnaroo for nine years. There was never a dull moment at the table. Conversation formed organically as we ate from the same long salad, spread out on parchment paper before us.
I think that was, in part, due to the kind of people that Bonnaroo attracts. Bonnaroo is the only festival I’ve attended that has a serious commitment to sustainability. Given that concern for the planet has once again hit the mainstream, you’d be hard-pressed to find a festival that doesn’t have a “green” component — but typically, it’s in the vendor area. I appreciate the small businesses out there that sell products to reduce the consumer’s carbon footprint or eliminate waste in one way or another. Every festival I’ve been to has had no shortage of those. But nowhere else had I felt that the festival organizers were cognizant of the massive environmental impact a gathering of 80,000 consumers could have, except at Bonnaroo.
Oxfam and Eat for Equity’s base camp in Planet Roo was surrounded by over 25 booths hosted by nonprofit organizations, a waste-free café, an Academy where one could learn about things like permaculture or poetry. Planet Roo was an oasis for socially and environmentally conscious people. Music festivals are often thought of as four consecutive days of partying, and for many people, they are. Bonnaroo takes advantage of the opportunity to educate thousands of (mostly young) people on global issues and how they can do their part to help save the planet.
The exchange of ideas is an important byproduct of these community dinners. By bringing people together around a common interest, we can influence one another and help create positive change. Oxfam and Eat for Equity are working together to create an environment that fosters community growth and global consciousness. I can’t thank Bonnaroo enough for providing a space for that to happen and encouraging it themselves. If you want to host your own Eat for Equity community dinner, read more about the organization here.
*Well, it may not officially be the world’s longest salad, but we’re pretty sure it’s up there.
