At the launch of “Hungry No More: A Blueprint to End Hunger in Los Angeles,” we announced our first round of “Fed Up with Hunger” micro-grants!   Here is a list of our recipients

Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles in support of SOVA Community Food & Resource Program
JFS/SOVA provides free groceries and supportive services to people whose limited incomes make it difficult to provide adequate, healthy food for themselves and family members.  In addition, SOVA has been a core partner in Fed Up with Hunger.

St. Margaret Center
A program of Catholic Charities, St. Margaret Center serves individuals and families living at or below the poverty level in the LAX area via a food pantry, classes and job training, and cash assistance for rent and utilities.

Food Forward
An all-volunteer organization that mobilizes individuals to glean excess fruit from orchards and backyards which is then donated to local food pantries.

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Patt Morrison is a superstar columnist, author, and radio personality. Her show on KPCC 89.3 is a live two-hour public affairs program known for its innovative discussions of local politics and culture, and for its presentation of national and world news as it affects Southern California.

Show Notes
L.A. is in the midst of a hunger crisis, with over 1.25 million people in LA County, mostly children and the elderly, struggling to get enough to eat. As part of their “Blueprint to End Hunger”, the Jewish Federation and its Fed Up With Hunger partners are calling on elected officials to declare Los Angeles a “hunger-free community.” Patt talks with them about their three part plan to eradicate hunger, how LA county can help and whether ending hunger is an economically feasible goal given the city’s dire financial straits.

Guests:
Andrew Cushnir, associate executive vice president of the Jewish Federation
Zev Yaroslavsky, LA County Supervisor

We’re beset by fast food, plagued by food deserts, and our waistlines are growing nearly as fast as the Federal debt- but don’t despair, folks!  We can fix these problems with a little ingenuity and a lot of communal elbow grease.  In fact, one exciting solution is already sweeping the nation: urban farming. 

Urban farms offer a number of benefits.  They provide a ready supply of fresh fruits and vegetables to inner city communities which all too often have a dearth of nutritious, healthful food.  This locally grown produce is more earth friendly than typical supermarket fare, which must be shipped from distant rural areas.  Urban farms also help to make a community out of otherwise anonymous inner city neighborhoods.  If you’ve ever lived in a big city (like Los Angeles), you’ve had the experience of your neighbors being strangers.  You pass by people on the street and you rarely say hello.  There’s really nothing like a good democratic effort to make a community out of anonymity. Read more »

Community Services Unlimited Inc. (CSU) runs a Community Supported Agriculture produce program.  Every Thursday, subscribers of the Farm Fresh Produce Bag program receive a bag filled with seasonal fruits and vegetables from CSU’s urban mini-farms and local farmers. The bag includes a news sheet with easy recipes using items in the bag.

Today, Farm Fresh subscribers got a special treat. They received their goods in Fed Up With Hunger reusable shopping bags. A big thanks goes out to CSU for helping us get the word out about the community effort to end hunger in LA!

By Stephanie Howard
Program Coordinator for Feeding the Hungry

400 volunteers packing 35,000 meals in one afternoon…talk about being Fed Up With Hunger!

Teen venture philanthropy: who would have thought something like that existed?  Temple Emanuel’s Money and Teens Creating Hope (MATCH) program is proving cynics wrong by educating and encouraging teenage congregants to participate in charitable giving.  This year, in solidarity up with Fed Up With Hunger, MATCH decided to support the fight against hunger in Los Angeles.

MATCH invited some of us on the Fed Up With Hunger team to  talk with teens about the issue and help guide their giving.  We wanted to do more than just talk, so we devised a hands-on, interactive workshop called “Who’s Hungry in LA?”  The workshop confronts participants with six different situations in which an individual or family cannot afford their weekly groceries.  The challenge is to figure out how to leverage a limited income and available support services  to get enough to eat. 

The workshop showed the teens how difficult it to secure a week’s worth of food on a shoestring budget.   I knew we had hit home when several of them stuck around after the workshop to find out about how they could become personally involved with Fed Up With Hunger.   Perhaps they were “fed up” themselves after seeing how maddeningly difficult it can be just to get enough nutritious food for a week.  As Sartre was wont to say, “Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”  Good thing is, hunger is just the sort of existential plight that we can do something about.

If you’re interested in using our “Who’s Hungry in LA?” workshop materials for a class, event, or meeting, please contact us at FedUpWithHunger@JewishLA.org.

Last Thursday, October 29th, at 8:44 am Hollywood’s Most Hated website featured a blog post on “A Worthwhile Cause.” Yep, you guessed it. That cause was Fed Up With Hunger!

We’re not exactly sure what prompted the “Queen of Media” to take interest in us, but we’re absolutely thrilled that he exposed our campaign to his massive following. According to an article in the LA Times this past August, the site gets more than 10 million unique visitors per month and “commands as much as $72,000 for a single 24-hour wallpaper-style” banner ad. Hopefully a few gossip fiends will take an interest in helping to end hunger here in LA.