If you missed the Fed Up With Hunger unofficial kick-off last week, you missed a one-of-a-kind event. More than 570 people helped ring in 5770 at Hidden Melodies Revealed, featuring The Sway Machinery. According to our good pals over at JDub Records, who organized and produced the concert, it was “the wildest and most exuberant Rosh Hashanah celebration the west coast has experienced.”

We were on hand to pass out Fed Up With Hunger bags, and get the crowd (an amazingly diverse bunch in terms of age and ethnicity), psyched up about eradicating hunger in L.A. If you missed the event, or just want to relive it, be sure to check out our video below. And then head over to GiveLifeMeaning.org and check out another new video, featuring music by The Beastie Boys.

The Fed Up With Hunger bags were seen by more than 100,000 people over the High Holidays.

We had a blast last night at our unofficial Fed Up With Hunger kick-off @JDUB’s Hidden Melodies event. The gig featured the soulful sounds of The Sway Machinery, rocking the roof off Wilshire Blvd Temple.

We’ll post a vid of the evening soon — in the meantime, check out The Sway Machinery over on jdubrecords.org.

[ed. note: Author David Lee is a Fed-staffer, and works in our Community Relations department. We're extremely fortunate to have someone on staff who is so knowledgeable and passionate about the hunger problem the city is facing.]

It’s been a few days since Ted Kennedy passed away and I can’t stop thinking about Jorge Muñoz.

The two men couldn’t be any more different. Kennedy was privileged beyond belief, an heir to not only one of the wealthiest family fortunes in America, but also to a political dynasty. Muñoz is a Colombian immigrant who came to the United States in the ‘80s after his father died in an accident.

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David McNew/Getty Images

I have a good friend who works in a “food desert,” which is a community that lacks access to healthy food.  She interns at a mental health clinic in Boyle Heights.  At lunchtime, she faces a deluge of fast food options: Burger King, Little Caesar’s, Subway, Popeye’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Drug dealers and gang members loiter outside the only market in the area.  Given that her lunch break doesn’t afford her enough time to commute for lunch, she’s forced to choose from this surfeit of unhealthy food.  Fortunately for her, it’s only a lunchtime dilemma.  The residents of Boyle Heights are not so lucky.

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Join us this Thursday, September 17, for JDub’s kickoff event to Rosh Hashanah: Hidden Melodies Revealed by The Sway Machinery. Part ritual, part rock concert – it’s sure to be a feel-good time. Best of all, it’s FREE!

JFedLA will be there raising awareness for Fed Up With Hunger, the community-wide initiative to end hunger in Los Angeles. We’ll be handing out new Fed Up reusable shopping bags, which are so sleek, they’ll even accessorize a suit! Make sure you get one.

Details

Thursday, September 17th, 2009
The Historic Piness Auditorium
Wilshire Boulevard Temple
3663 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, 90010

Schedule

8:00PM Open bar reception, including wines from Wente Vineyards, will be held in the courtyard of the temple.
9:00PM Show
Free Admission!
Free Parking on a first come, first serve basis + Pay lot across the street from the temple.

RSVP Info

Email your full name and # in your party to info@jdubrecords.org, with LA HMR in the subject line.

A twenty-fifth anniversary screening of the Bill Murray classic Ghostbusters will be held at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery to benefit the Federation’s Fed Up With Hunger initiative.

Details

Sunday, October 11th
Gates open at 6:00 pm
Movie starts at 7:30 pm
Admission = 5 cans of food per person

6000 Santa Monica Blvd
Hollywood, CA 90038
Street parking is available

Get together some friends and a picnic dinner (alcohol is okay), spread out on the cemetery lawn, and join the movement to end hunger in Los Angeles. Low-seating folding chairs (no tall chairs) and blankets are a good idea, too. Reservations are not required, but seating is first come – first serve, so be sure to get there early as the best spots fill up fast!

My work at the Jewish Federation has made me privy to a secret: millions of people in Greater Los Angeles (and thousands of Jews) can’t make ends meet; they can’t put food on the table.  So when we started talking about a plan to end hunger I thought to myself, this is great, but can we really make a dent?  Not just in the Jewish community, but in the community at large?  And how are we going to tackle an issue this big, this amorphous?

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Debra Messing is Fed Up With Hunger. We hope you are too.

Get involved and Give Your Life Meaning.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack is now sporting a Fed Up With Hunger tote. And so can you! Our little black bags will be distributed at upcoming events until we run out. So come out early and often in order to claim your stake in the campaign.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack (left) with Board Member Neil Salowitz of our partner organization, MAZON.

Mike Wolf brings us along for his weekly ritual – Sundays at JFS/SOVA. Mike and other volunteers collect, pack, and distribute food to families and individuals who don’t get enough to eat.

JFS/SOVA is a nonsectarian program of Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles dedicated to alleviating hunger and poverty in the community. The majority of JFS/SOVA clients have stable housing, but their monthly incomes are insufficient to meet their own and/or their family’s needs. JFS/SOVA pantries assist an average of 7,000 people each month.

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