Next year, join in, to Venice-styled spontaneous-family gatherings for everyone in the area, with those who live outdoors and have less money as the main guest eaters.

Even if many other places also generously fed and also advertised their good deeds of giving food for this 1-day-servings-a-plenty, this place seemed somehow special and came with a bit of feeling free too. Outside in the breezy sunshine with adjacent seagulls and pelicans waving nearby, the boardwalk is a designated ‘tourist’ space but actually it is more a local instant-community to many who have arrived here to find a place to sleep safely outdoors. Many on their-way to another place soon.

Oh, yeah, we all had a greatest feed of all times... at the “2nd annual Feed the Beach on Thanksgiving day - on November 27, 2008! By the Oceanfront boardwalk in Venice, Nina and James of The Fruit Gallery at 1 Westminster Ave. in Venice, organized and brought together many donors and volunteers to provide a fantastic food-giving extravaganza.

The plentiful food was purchased, cooked and delivered by mostly separate individuals, then home-made & cooked with care and loving hearts and hands. And some just spontaneously brought in their goodies. A woman with two daughters carrying their hand-made cookies in plastic containers timidly asked if they could being their gifts in, and of course the gift was shared with the next recipient in the salivating food line.

Oh yes ! There was so much delicious [“divine” is a more descriptive term, when all work done is filled with lovingness by giving ‘angels’ of Venice] food and desserts and more too. Turkey. Ham. More turkey. More potatoes, sweet and white and mashed and squashed and glopped onto waiting plate holders. Pies and cranberry sauce, and salad and stuffings and rice and noodles and soft drinks and water and coffee from the next door from the ”Groundwork Coffee Co.” too.

Why even this writer, while acting as-if she sorta hostessed the event dropped into the position of controlling entry to the free food line.... all the while having fun by interacting with all those often too ready to push in ‘first !’ into getting free food... by adding that bouncer-discipline not ever asked for by the actual organizers.

Yes, I had made fancy big signs for kids to wear while strolling up & down on Oceanfront boardwalk to announce the Free Food Feast and extravaganza. To include all those who did not yet realize the royal feast being prepared only for them, when I arrived there I then made another sign that read "Free Food Line Starts HERE" and I proudly wore it.



So again some of us just slide into the position of doing what is momentarily needed, but then I found that I then acted like prison cop guards do at their ‘in house’ disciplined feed lines. This only to insure that the street homeless, the alcoholics, the street vendors, the passer-bys and all “others” stayed in an equitable friendly line. Indomitably, I made sure sly guys didn’t just cut in to get more first.

I insisted even if they had only a backpack or no money, that everyone at this feast had to act courteously and fair during this moment. .... yeah, like I fit into my usual take control momentarily role well...and told a couple of them sly guys that , "hey, this just like in prison, isn’t it? " and they nodded dutifully, maybe afraid to say more or be shamed & moved to the end of the longering line ... well, the food line started to get long and longer for up to an hour before the food was spread out in generous trays. And there was enough for all and more too.

The line began with mostly guys, many looking like they may be now homeless [ also called “home-more”... describing in the open spaces they use to lay their belongings]. Most were young, some maybe in their 40’s in age, many admitting proudly to being alcoholic, some with umedicated mental-social problems, & others just venetian folk.

Then the free-rent-lottery street-vendors – most are commercial junk or a few do artistic work - saw the event and envied the food piled on plates and they too lined up as quickly as they could.

As plenty & enough food was available, and as a couple of sweet women were also holding up signs about “FREE THANKS FOOD here” – preferring this chore instead of joining the eat-now line – so then“ walker-by-strangers also joined in, sometimes cautiously, but then saw that they too were invited to join the Venice Free Food festival that it was. By then everyone who came by Westminster & the boardwalk wanted to be included in This Spontaneously formed Family...this instant-forming-community of eaters, and people who cared for each other.

As I finally joined & stood in the ever-giving food line, [food was mostly served by young teens from a foster home] the guy in front of me was offered turkey - and each time he said “yes, more” and again “yes” at another offer and repeated this excess need to eat this day until his plate was over 6” high -and the piled high food looked ready to slip off the edges if moved another inch. He then took his palm, squashed it down to insure nothing would be lost, and continued on to get some sweets too now.

I was amazed at how unjudgemental each offering of food was by each server. Each one spooning on as much as the guest desired without restraints. This was an attitude of giving, of food made by others, but easy in sharing the wealth of what was available to all - in quantities that sometimes appeared excessive - but also necessary if this was the biggest meal of the month for some of us.

Later walking the boardwalk, a guy asking for “change” from the ‘tourists’ was heard reporting to his friend: “I ate so much and I’m so full, I can hardly drink this beer !”. What a compliment to the many chefs whose generosity was given without ever knowing the feasters of their food.

The young teenage servers may have assumed erroneously that they were doing the eaters ‘a favor by serving’ this delivered food perhaps because their wisdom had not yet kicked in. When asked about their experiences serving, some seemed to think they had been “good” in their deeds, not realizing how many older-than-teen people had asked to volunteer “to serve”.

Of course, serving food that was paid, provided, and cooked by someone else is the best part of the job, providing that good feeling when each eater gratefully thanks them [that >5 ‘thank you !” every 3 minutes] for each serving received. And many folk, arriving later, such volunteers did not get their chance in the gratitude-given-line of servers.

Live music was also divinely given for all with Eric on guitar and his 2 cohorts playing improvised amplified delicious sounds. Not unusual to Venice, some resident called the police to complain about the loud sounds coming from the boardwalk in the middle of a holiday, and lucky for me that I was the one approached to report [that it is required action of notifying amplified performers that a complaint has been called in to LAPD] this complaint. In negotiating that complaint with being reluctant-to-interfere in what was obviously a great Venetian Giving Event, the musicians continued providing their magical-sound gifts with awareness that those in some apartments choose to live in this locality but do not like their neighbors’ free and ‘loud’ ways.

And yet these complainers never seem to move from the area that disturbs their television viewing habits. A Texas styled folksinger also sang and later a flamenco guitar player also performed for the munching Venetians.

Extras in giving were also generosity-in-action, besides the extravaganza of food. . Bags of fancy brand-new blankets and other survival necessities were handed out to those in need. . Camellias were placed on borrowed tables for sit-down in family style feasting. Two men wore aprons and cleaned & broomed around the new tables set up, janitoring happily without pay or even a “thank you” from most of the feasters.

Instant-photographs on-the-spot were offered with a card and envelope with a stamp, to send ‘home’ or a family loved person by “Venice Paparazzi”, this being a thoughtful gift that these travelers with few amenities can’t often afford on their own.

A woman passed out home-made-chocolates, a man ca,e with a big bag of tootsie-rolls, there were a hugs from a strangers, a smiles from each person, eye-contact with each person present at this heart-full event, the gifts of giving, eating and then remembering was all present and exuberantly shared.

[and yes, always here, the visiting passerby’s took photos continuously, but that was for their own use, not for the giving to the ones being depicted or pixed here...unless the images appear on a website later - even if without permission of the eaters being photographed.]

What fun ! The pleasures of this day organized by a few and provided by many anonymous donors and cooks, made Venice the place to remember - for another year’s of garbage picking and the 1-baloney slice bare sandwiches donated by religious groups. Here there was no secret agenda, no commercial messages, no publicity to be gained, no religious pull or presence, and no conflicts!

This was Just Venice -acting in it’s unique ways - loving its’ selves.

(c) Mindboggler mj 2008