FREE FOOD EVERYDAY FREE FOOD

Like the original Diggers of the 15th century the San Francisco Diggers began their existence in 1966 with the offering of free food. The original leaflet passed around in Haight-Ashbury by the two original Diggers Emmett Grogan and Billy Murcott stated:

FREE FOOD            GOOD HOT STEW

 RIPE TOMATOES       FRESH FRUIT 

BRING A BOWL AND A SPOON TO

THE PANHANDLE AT ASHBURY STREET

    4 PM  4 PM  4PM  4PM

FREE FOOD EVERYDAY FREE FOOD 

IT'S FREE BECAUSE IT'S YOURS! 

                                            the diggers.

It was the ultimate affront to the hip merchants of the burgeoning hippie scene. It made the Diggers famous and while there are several famous SF Diggers the Free Food service was a continues daily struggle that took most of the day and the labour involved came almost exclusively from women whose names are never remembered, or so Grogan tell us in his autobiography. The food itself was mostly stolen and often wilted or otherwise unwanted. Hence stews. Meat was considered an essential ingredient. Like with the original Diggers the simplicity of the Free Food program transferred an obscure group of disenfranchised lay intellectuals into a media phenomena everybody could relate to. Pictures from Charles Perry's 'The Haight Ashbury'.