Seeds of Peace Collective

Since 1986, the Seeds of Peace Collective has provided logistical support and trainings to activists struggling on the front lines for social, environmental, and economic justice. We are a small but motivated group of individuals dedicated to furnishing the basics--namely, food, water, medical aid, and skill sets--essential to the success of direct action campaigns and mass mobilizations.

Seeds of Peace is dedicated to feeding, healing, training, and in all ways supporting the practitioners of radical political change. We have a mobile kitchen that can serve thousands, we have the skills and tools to build and equip emergency medical clinics in many environments, and we can provide trainings in a variety of areas such as: campaign strategizing, nonviolent direct action- and mass action tactics, community health and safety, and action first aid. We also offer a few certified Wilderness First Responder courses and action camps now and again. If you want to make a request for our collective to support your event, please contact us and let us know the details. [back to top]

We do what we do so that organizers and demonstrators--bellies full and in good health--focus their energy more fully on the tasks at hand. We believe that community kitchens and community clinics can be incredibly empowering spaces--liberated zones, if you will--in which people, working together and horizontally, can accomplish so much more (and feel so much better) than individuals working in the isolating and competitive world of the "free market". In this sense, it is in large part our goal to "create the structure of a new society within the shell of the old," as the Wobblies would have it.

That is to say, it is our intention to use our skills and equipment, not merely to provide a "service," but rather to facilitate individual empowerment and community solidarity by creating a framework with which people can work, and upon which people can improve. As a small collective, we cannot, by ourselves, cook for 7,000 people. But by providing kitchen equipment and a certain level of experience, we can work with and facilitate a group of people to cook , deliver, and serve a meal on such a scale. [back to top]

Seeds of Peace emerged out of the historic Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament in 1986 as an organization dedicated to providing the basics--namely, food, water, and medical aid--to those struggling on the front lines for social, environmental, and economic justice. Seeds of Peace has worked for over 23 years to support communities working on a direct, grassroots level to end homelessness, stem nuclear proliferation, promote indiginous self-determination, advocate for migrant workers’ rights, resist capitalism and neoliberal globalization, and demand environmental and climate justice.

Our commitment to the struggle of the Newe (Western Shoshone) for the return of their lands and for an end to nuclear testing began in the late 1980's. Since then, we have often supported their annual Mothers’ Day gathering at the Nevada Test Site as well as other related events and actions

In addition to working with Diné (Navajo) elders in their struggle against forced relocation from Big Mountain, Seeds of Peace has supported the Coalition of Immoklee Workers, Homes Not Jails, Veterans Against the War, Code Pink, Greenpeace, the Common Ground Collective, Earth First!, Rising Tide, Climate Ground Zero, the Shundahai Network, United for Peace and Justice, and a number of other organizations and movements, both big and small.

In the early 1990s, Seeds of Peace moved to the Northern Rockies (from the Southwest) to support a decade-long campaign to stop the Cove/Mallard timber sale in central Idaho. Around that same time, we began working with local environmental activists to help start what would become the Buffalo Field Campaign--an ongoing movement to stop the slaughter of Bison that wander outside the Yellowstone National Park boundaries--while continuing our commitment to the Cove/Mallard Campaign.

In 1999, Seeds of Peace fed the thousands of activists who converged in Seattle to demonstrate against the World Trade Organization summit and, since then, has travelled all over the country to support subsequent mobilizations against neoliberal globalization and corporate hegemony. In 2004 we spent over a month cooking for a march that travelled between the Democratic- and Republican National Conventions (in Boston and New York, respectively) as well as for the demonstrations at the conventions themselves.

For the past 5 years--between supporting the Common Ground Collective’s relief efforts in New Orleans, the 2005 and 2009 Earth First! Rendezvous, the 2006 BioJustice mobilizations in Boston, the 2007 Northwest Climate Convergence in Washington, the demonstrations against the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN and the 2009 mobilizations against the G20 in Pittsburgh (among other events)--we have been working on converting our waste-vegetable-oil-powered school bus into a mobile kitchen, office, and clinic. Seeds of Peace now has a crew of 10 dedicated and motivated cooks, Emergency Medical Technicians, First Responders, and clinical herbalists, not to mention a solid base of volunteers and supporters (though we can always use more!). [back to top]

G20/FTAA

Q: How long has Seeds of Peace been around?

A: Since 1986. So about 24 years

Q: How many folks are involved with Seeds of Peace?

A: We are a small collective of about 10 individuals, but there are a number of folks who work with us on a regular basis, and scores more who volunteer with us at actions.

Q: What is the organizational structure of Seeds of Peace. How do you make decisions?

A: Seeds of Peace is organized non-hierarchically as a collective. This means that we make all important decisions through a process of consensus, not by executive decree or majority-rule.

Q: Why aren't there more F.A.Q.s on this page?

A: We're working on it. Check back in a couple weeks.

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