Food Not Bombs Hobart

What if you have an idea for something that could bring people together — but you don’t have a venue, an audience, equipment, volunteers, or a ready-made organisation behind you?

That’s where Small Projects comes in.

A Small Project is an opportunity for someone to take an idea of their own and use the platforms, relationships and practical resources around Food Not Bombs Hobart to make it happen.

The important part is that the project belongs to the person who starts it.

We can provide some of the tools: a place to promote it, connections with people, food, equipment, volunteers, experience, and an existing community to work alongside.

But you lead the project.

Eamonn showed us what this can look like

Eamonn was one of the first people to really demonstrate the idea.

He didn’t simply come along and volunteer at something we had already organised. He developed his own event and made it happen.

He invited people from his own community. He organised two bands to perform. He created an artists’ corner where people could learn drawing from artists. He worked out his own menu and found volunteer cooks to help prepare it.

There were lots of moving parts.

But the important thing wasn’t how complicated the event became.

It was that Eamonn had an idea, took responsibility for it, and used the resources around him to bring it to life.

And something else happened.

The project attracted mainstream media attention.

For Eamonn, that meant his project reached well beyond the people who were already connected to us. For Food Not Bombs Hobart, it became something much bigger.

The attention created new awareness, new relationships and new opportunities. In many ways, it was a turning point for the organisation.

That is an important part of the Small Projects idea.

When someone uses our platforms to make something happen, the benefit doesn’t have to travel in only one direction. Their project can grow, while the energy, attention and relationships created around it can strengthen the wider community platform too.

It doesn’t have to be a big event

A Small Project could be an afternoon like Eamonn’s.

But it could also be much simpler.

You might want to run a one-hour workshop.

You might want to organise a community meal.

You might have an idea for a creative activity.

You might want to teach something you know.

You might want to make something and sell it.

You might want to create something that happens once a month.

Or you might have an idea that grows into something that continues for years.

There isn’t a required size, timetable or formula.

The person starting the project decides what it becomes.

You bring the idea. We can help with the tools.

Small Projects is about making some of the things that normally feel difficult a little more possible.

You might already have the skills but not the audience.

You might have the idea but not the venue.

You might know the people you want to involve but not know how to get started.

You might simply need somewhere to try something.

That’s where our existing platforms can be useful.

Food Not Bombs Hobart already has relationships, community connections, communication channels, physical spaces, practical experience and people who are willing to help.

Rather than keeping all of those things for projects we organise ourselves, we want to make them available to people who have their own ideas.

The project belongs to you

This is important.

Small Projects isn’t about us taking over someone’s idea and turning it into a Food Not Bombs project.

It’s about helping someone make their project happen.

You decide what you want to do.

You decide who you want to involve.

You decide how big or small it becomes.

We can help provide the tools and connections around it.

That’s why Eamonn’s project matters. Not because everyone needs to reproduce what he did, but because he showed what can happen when someone is given the opportunity to take an idea and run with it.

And the organisation changed as a result.

His project brought something back to the wider platform — attention, relationships, momentum and possibilities that weren’t there in quite the same way before.

That’s the exchange we’re interested in creating.

Start small

The name is deliberate.

A Small Project doesn’t need a business plan, a committee or a five-year strategy.

It can start with an idea and a conversation.

Maybe you have something you would like to try.

Maybe you have a skill you’d like to share.

Maybe there is a group of people you would like to bring together.

Maybe you simply want to see whether an idea works.

Tell us what you’re thinking about.

We can work out what resources might be available and what part you want to take.

You lead the Small Project.

We are the tools.

Read more:

• SMALL PROJECTS: Bring an Idea, Make It Happen – Start Here
• PODCAST#1: Community Support And Making
• SPONSOR: Return2Community – Thank you
• SPONSOR: Thank You Ash and the New Sydney Hotel – A new partnership begins
• SMALL PROJECT: FNB Hobart Makers – More than Timber and tools