Since May 2004, a group of IU students has collected food that would otherwise have been thrown away and turned it into meals that they share for free with anyone interested.

Part of the national Food Not Bombs ( FNB ) movement, the Bloomington group serves from 1 to 3 p.m. Sundays at Trinity Episcopalian Church during the winter months. In warmer weather, the cooks share their food in People's Park.

Steve Lane and Jayme Jenkins are two members of the loose-knit group of young people who produce what Jenkins calls a community potluck. "It's not just about feeding the hungry," Jenkins said recently over tea at Soma. "It's all about slowing urban waste." She said most of the FNB materials are "dumpstered" — retrieved — from the overflowing waste bins in the community. "A lot of the veggies we've dumpstered are in better condition than the food we buy!" she exclaimed.

Editor's note: Today's is the first installment in a new series by Alternative contributor Lisa Golda called "Activism Spotlight," through which she will explore the personalities and activities of Bloomington's activist community.

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"Some people say it's preaching to the choir. I say, absolutely, and I will continue to preach to the choir."

Nate Johnson has committed to educating voters in Bloomington, like-minded or otherwise, through Reel Democracy, a local organization that hosts free screenings of politically oriented documentaries at least twice a month. This weekend, Reel Democracy, with sponsorship by the Cinemat, presented multiple screenings of "Outfoxed; Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," the latest Robert Greenwald documentary. Outfoxed demonstrates that Rupert Murdoch and his network, Fox, are anything but "fair and balanced."