Fed Up with Hunger’s Big Sunday project was a gleaning of the Hollywood, Larchmont, Brentwood and Encino Farmers Markets.  Our cheery volunteers from the Jewish Federation’s young leadership divisions and Birthright Next solicited produce donations from farmers market shoppers and vendors alike.  We mercilessly unleashed our smiles and go get ‘em enthusiasm, inspiring scores of vulnerable, charity prone people  into giving us produce.

I’m happy to report that people gave generously.  Shoppers dropped off a continual stream of full paper bags and, at the end of the day, the vendors let us have their still good, but unsellable fruits and vegetables.  Ultimately, we raised over 1500 pounds of produce!!!  Our gargantuan haul was divied up between JFS-SOVA, the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition and Food Finders.  This week, hundreds of hungry people will eat healthful, nutritious meals because of our Big Sunday volunteers’ incredible efforts! 

We were very excited to have Repair the World come out and videotape the goings on as part of their documentary on all the inspiring service projects that Jewish organizations are doing all across the country.  We had to be on our best,
most enthused behavior.    Sometime soon you’ll be able to see us traipsing around the Hollywood Farmers Market and spieling about hunger and food insecurity in live action.

 There’s no two ways about- we had a blast out there.  You can’t help but have a good time when you get to watch a male volunteer in an extra small woman’s Big Sunday shirt waving around a sign in the middle of a crowd or receiving a generous donation from Mr. Billy Zane himself.  I can’t wait to do this again next year!

Aaren Alpert is Fed Up With Hunger’s in-house youth outreach pro .  When Aaren heard that the United Synagogue Youth, or USY, needed social action programming for their Valley Beth Shalom weekend teen retreat, she got to work.  Let me tell you something about Aaren– she’s serious when it comes to youth programming.  Not only is she armed with years of personal and professional experience, but her mother is the legendary Merrill Alpert, youth programming maven of Far West United Synagogue Youth.  In other words, this sort of stuff is literally in her blood.  Teaming up with VBS’ Rabbi Noah Farkas and youth directors Alison Bluestein and Tiffany Kosloy, Aaren put her know how to good use and set up a whole Fed Up With Hunger themed weekend!

On Saturday morning, the USY Fed Up With Hunger extravaganza kicked off with over 100 USY’ers crowded into the Valley Beth Shalom youth lounge for a Fed Up With Hunger Banquet.  The Fed Up With Hunger Banquet is a scripted meal conducted a lot like a Passover Seder, but, instead of telling the story of the Israelites flight from Egypt, the banquet explores the character of food insecurity in the world at large and our own communities.   The USY’ers were challenged as the more economically fortunate to realize how difficult it is for needy individuals and families to afford fresh, healthful food.  We were really impressed with the lively extended conversation the banquet provoked, especially considering the banquet was holding up their lunch!

After taking a break on Saturday for Shabbat and the obligatory DJ’ed dance, the USY’ers got back to it on Sunday morning with a workshop which had them budget for a week’s worth of groceries on a food insecure household’s income.  Even with food stamps, soup kitchens and food pantries to rely on, the USY’ers realized that eating healthfully on a strapped food budget is nearly impossible.  The numbers are demoralizing: the price differential between a nutritionally poor and healthful diet amounts to several hundred dollars per week for a family of four.  The workshop is frustrating by design, as the point is to demonstrate how the food insecure eat poorly as a matter of necessity.

Once the USY’ers were sufficiently fed up with hunger (we can’t resist that pun around here), they rolled up their sleeves and got hands on with their Tikkun Olam.  They split up into groups and worked on a bevy of different projects: potato boxes planters for VBS’ community garden were built, lasagnas were made for a local homeless shelter, food was sorted for the VBS food pantry and nearly one hundred pounds of food donations were collected from Ralph’s.  Some of the more theatrically inclined USY’ers put together video PSA’s about hunger to post on their Facebook pages and other social media.  All in all, were completely impressed by the enthusiastic response we got.  The USY’ers learned about hunger, they took action against hunger and they made the fight to end hunger their own.

After the program was over, we asked Adam Braun, one of the USY teen leaders responsible for running the kinnus, how the weekend impacted him.  He said that “For me, it was an experience to be treasured and it has inspired me to take future action because I know that, even though I may just be one adolescent teenager, I can make a difference.”  That’s right Adam- you can!  And together, we can do so much more.  Thank you USY for taking a stand against hunger in Los Angeles!

Students at UCLA Hillel are rolling up their sleeves and joining the fight against hunger in Los Angeles. Hillel is a student organization whose mission is to enrich the lives of Jewish undergraduate and graduate students so that they may give back to the Jewish people and the world.  One way Hillel students give back is though tzedek, which is Hebrew for “social justice.“ Every Hillel chapter has a tzedek chair who organizes service events, helping to teach students that an important part of being a community is to take care of the less fortunate.

In honor of Thanksgiving, UCLA Hillel’s hunger-project-in-charge Desiree Soleymani organized a PB&J Challenge Night.  Fifteen students came together to make as many as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as they could for the hungry in our community.  In their tzedek inspired zeal, they made over 200 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Hillel donated the sandwiches to the food recovery organization Angel Harvest, which distributed them to homeless people living in the West Hollywood area.

During the event, the students watched videos from the Fed Up with Hunger website and discussed future events for the upcoming year. UCLA Hillel will hold additional Fed Up With Hunger themed events in the coming year, including more PB&J Challenge Nights and a volunteer day at a soup kitchen.  They also plan to launch an initiative to get UCLA to donate surplus food from campus dining facilities to food aid providers.

Fed Up With Hunger applauds UCLA Hillel’s efforts to fight food insecurity in Los Angeles!  We here at Fed Up With Hunger are forming a broad coalition of student groups working against hunger.  If you’re a student activist from any campus organization, whether faith or cause based,  and you want to get involved with Fed Up With Hunger, e-mail me at ebraun@jewishla.org.  I’ll be happy to help your group find it’s place in the Fed Up With Hunger campaign!

By Evangeline Heath

After watching Food Inc. and learning how big Agri-business has consumers by the brussels sprouts, my day spent volunteering with Garden School Foundation was a much needed ray of sunshine.

My husband and I pulled into the 24th Street Elementary School’s parking lot bright and early on Saturday morning not knowing what to expect. Located right alongside the Western Ave. exit on the notoriously traffic-laden 10 freeway in the West Adams district of Los Angeles, it certainly seemed like an unlikely place for a garden.

Walking onto the grounds, however, we soon found ourselves in a lush, green landscape. Classrooms surrounded a charming garden courtyard beneath a giant weeping willow. This was the school’s initial “test garden.” It’s now being used as an inter-curricular learning area. Two large banners boasted “Outdoor Classroom” and “Good Eats”.

Winding our way around the buildings, we came upon GSF’s flagship garden and were truly awe-struck. Three-quarters of an acre of verdant land, abundant with fresh herbs, vegetables and fruit trees. With the roar of I-10 in the background, this patch of green seemed miraculous. Instead of exhaust and pollution, we inhaled the scent of freshly laid hay, rosemary and honeysuckle.

Dr. Nat Zappia, an environmental historian specializing in Native California, and Director of GSF, greeted us with a warm smile and happily answered our multitude of questions. In 2003, LAUSD was going to lay down a fresh new coat of black asphalt in order to “beautify” the grounds. Classic. Second grade teacher Linda Slater and principal Yongpyo Grace Yoon, approached the community to see if they couldn’t think of something more imaginative and inspiring for the children than a concrete jungle. In short order, an enthusiastic group of parents and community members got together and GSF was born.

In 2005 GSF asked Nancy Goslee Power to draw up a plan that would fit all the needs of teachers, parents and students.  The garden is a testament to her outstanding work.  Here is just a sample of the wealth of learning experiences the garden provides:

• Cooking Curriculum: Volunteer chefs Jennie Cook and Gino Campagna lead two weekly “Slow Food Cooking” classes where students forage, prepare and cook their own food.
• Herb Project: Students grow herbs that they then sell to a local restaurant, Pitfire Pizza, developing skills in gardening, marketing, packaging and financial literacy.
• Science Garden: Standardized state science curriculum is integrated into garden-based lessons.
• Animal Habitat Workshop: Students learn the relationship between animal habitats, gardens and ecosystems.
• Yoga Workshop: Yoga in the garden!

Not only that, GSF has also started a Wild Food garden.  1/4 of an acre of the schoolyard is now devoted to edible native plants.  Lessons about food foraging and native Californian botany will also be worked into their school curriculum.

Read the rest of the article>>

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Evangeline Heath is a foodie and sustainable living advocate. She blogs at www.farmapartment.com

“When you reap the harvest of your college campus, do not reap to the very edges of your dining hall…” – Studenticus 19:9

Dorm food is not just for students anymore.  The Occidental College chapter of Circle K, a national collegiate community service organization, has partnered with Occidental’s campus dining facilities to deliver quality, un-served food to Midnight Mission, a major provider of emergency food to the needy living on Skid Row.  Adriana Fukuzato, president of the Circle K chapter, says that, “Circle K is dedicated to service and that means being leaders in the community. This is not only a service to Occidental but to Midnight Mission as well…. we are more than happy to donate the food as well as our time to such a wonderful organization.”

Circle K’s efforts are vital at a time when the ranks of the hungry and food insecure are burgeoning.  The additional need is straining emergency food providers like Midnight Mission.  The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, the biggest player in Los Angeles’ charitable food distribution network, recently reported that demand at the food pantries they serve has increased by 34% since 2008.  More than ever, we need to make efficient use of our food to feed the hungry in our community.

Tragically, Americans waste a tremendous amount of food. According to a recent USDA study[1], about 1400 calories of food is wasted per person per day, amounting to over 150 trillion calories per year!

This figure takes into account food waste that occurs at every level, from the edible but blemished fruit and vegetables farmers can’t sell to the unsold baked goods your local coffee shops throws away every day.  If we were able to glean this food waste, there would be 3000 calories of food available to feed each of the 49.1 million food insecure Americans- 1000 calories more than their suggested caloric intake.  Of course, not all of this food waste is realistically recoverable, but these figures do suggest that gleaning presents a real opportunity to feed the hungry and improve food security.

Food waste is not just a humanitarian issue – it’s also an environmental catastrophe.  It takes one quarter of our total freshwater consumption and more than 300 million barrels of oil per year to produce the food we waste.  Furthermore, 98% of the food ends up in landfills and decomposes into methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that has 25 times the impact on atmospheric temperatures when compared to a similar amount of carbon dioxide.

I believe that an effective food recovery program would have a huge positive impact on our community, and so do the students I’ve been working with at UCLA, USC, and the Claremont Colleges.  They hope to follow Occidental Circle K’s lead and convince their campus dining facilities to donate their un-served food to food aid providers.  It’s important for our civic institutions, like our city’s prestigious universities, to set an example for the rest of the community.

Los Angeles- our students are ready to be the Boaz to our city’s Ruths.  Dorm food is every bit as gleanable as a field of grain, and just as important to feeding the hungry in our city.

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.

No where in the United States has capitalized on the potential of urban farms like Detroit.  Economic devastation has yielded the city a unique opportunity: there are currently 40 square miles of vacant lots in metro Detroit.  The city has begun turning the vacant lots into community and family gardens- over 80 acres have already been planted.   There may not be a single supermarket in downtown Detroit, but there are now farmers markets supplied by these gardens which provide critically needed fruits and vegetables.

Here in Los Angeles, communities underserved by supermarkets and other fresh produce vendors have also turned to urban farming.  It’s been a struggle, however.  The South Central Farmers, for example, used to run the biggest urban farm in the country on the corner of East 41^st and Alameda. 

About 350 families living in the South Central area worked together on the 13 acre farm to grow a veritable cornucopia of crops: avocadoes, beans, yerba mate, walnuts, guava, cilantro, chayote, beans, beans… and that’s just to name a few!

Unfortunately, there’s always trouble in paradise.  The South Central Farmers did not have full control over their land.  The lot was originally seized from the Alameda-Barbara Investment Company by the City of Los Angeles for a waste-to-energy incinerator.  When community opposition defeated the proposal to build the incinerator, the city decided to give the LA Regional Food Bank a revocable permit to plant a community garden on the lot.  The community garden eventually became what we now know as the South Central Farmers.  The former owners of the lot, however, sued for the right to repurchase the land and, after years of legal wrangling, the South Central Farmers ultimately had to give up their farm. The whole saga was captured in the Academy nominated documentary “The Garden: Eviction from Eden.”  

While due process was served, it still is an unfortunate setback for urban farming in Los Angeles.  There’s no reason, however, that we can’t bring urban farming on the same or even a greater scale to Los Angeles- we’ll just need your help.  Yup, I’m talking to you, the forward thinking individual who’s taken time out of their day to read a blog about hunger.  For example, the South Central Farmers now run an 80 acre farm cooperative in Bakersfield.  On weekends, the South Central Farmers shuttle out to Bakersfield to pack produce boxes to sell at Los Angeles area farmers markets.  Support their effort to reestablish themselves back in Los Angeles by buying a box of delicious fruits and vegetables.  The boxes can conveniently be ordered online and picked up at a location near you.  You’ll get a week’s worth of tasty meals and a bucket of good karma to boot!

Hey, you could even plant your own food garden.  Check out UrbanFoodGarden.org for everything you need to know about growing your own fruits and vegetables.  Be an example to the community.  Invite people over and feed them a delicious home grown meal.  Make them jealous. 

Really, that’s what Fed Up With Hunger is all about- motivating people to make a difference.  Angelenos, let’s get out there and sow some crops!  As Rabbi Hillel was wont to say,” If not now, when”.

Last night at a community-wide event in downtown Los Angeles, I sat down with an unlikely cast of dining partners including students of Para Los Niños Charter School and their families, colleagues from the Jewish Federation, members of the Chrysalis program, and other guests. We shared in the pure magic of an evening where Angelenos of all races, languages, and religions came together to celebrate Sukkot.

The event was the brainchild of Andrew Cushnir, Associate Executive Vice President of The Jewish Federation, in partnership with Gisselle Acevedo, President/CEO of Para Los Niños. The program included many distinguished guest speakers, but the highlight of the evening occurred when the 3rd and 4th graders from Para Los Ninos and Heschel Day School took the stage together and sang songs in English, Spanish, and Hebrew. Led by song leader Cindy Paley, the children were the expression of unity, hope and peace in our community. They sang from their hearts with their faces aglow.

I was surprised at how many emotions the event evoked in me. As part of the Fed Up With Hunger initiative, I felt joy and frustration, gratitude and guilt as I ate a healthy portion of fajitas, salad, and churros. While many of us eat what we want, whenever we want, with whomever we want, I was reminded yesterday of the harsh realities of hunger and poverty here in Los Angeles. 1 in 8 people, over 1 million Angelenos, face hunger every day!

But, I was also reminded of so many heroes in our community that fight this fight every day. And at the end of the evening, I felt hopeful.

Congratulations to the teachers of Para Los Niños and teachers everywhere, who continue to educate our children, nurture their souls, and feed their stomachs. Please think about volunteering and/or donating. Trust me when I tell you how worthwhile the experience of getting involved is. Last night, those kids gave my life meaning!

Andrea Sonnenberg (right), board member of the Para Los Ninos Charter School and Jewish Federation member, taught Para Los Ninos 4th graders about Sukkot in preparation for the Fed Up With Hunger Cross-Cultural Sukkah Event tomorrow, 10/8.

Not only did students learn about the holiday and related traditions, but Andrea taught them how to build sukkahs made out of food!

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.

Despite the struggles in his personal life, Kennedy devoted his life to fairness and morality, fighting to give guys like Muñoz a fair shake. He crusaded tirelessly against genocide, homelessness, and discrimination of all sorts. He fought for labor, health care, and equal rights (to say nothing about what he did in the Soviet Jewry movement).

Muñoz, on the other hand, earns $700 a week driving a school bus. After arriving home, he begins his second, unpaid job: feeding over 100 people a hot, home cooked meal at a subway stop in Queens. Every night. For the last four years. (He missed one night when a snow storm shut down the road).

Kennedy and Muñoz are seemingly complete opposites. But in one way, they are the same: they both care deeply about social justice.

Kennedy waged his war at the institutional level. Muñoz battles for it, literally, on the street. Great works are needed at both ends of the spectrum because while government can balance the scales of justice in a swift, wide-ranging manner, overcoming the inertia to do so can take a long time. On the other hand, while individuals don’t singularly have the power to create macro change, everyone is able to make micro change by reaching out and immediately helping those who are suffering.

So what have you done lately?

If you’re like me, not a lot. My excuse is that I work for a nonprofit; I “give at the office.”  The truth is, I have a hard time getting out of bed to get to work by 8:30 am. And if I don’t leave work exactly at 5:00 pm to run around at the gym, I won’t make it home for Hell’s Kitchen, Top Chef, Hoarders, Project Runway or whatever my reality show of the day is, even though they are all programmed on my HD TiVO.

It’s weak, I know.

Imagine a world with more Ted Kennedys and Jorge Muñozes. Imagine what we could do, together.

From now until the day we eradicate hunger in Los Angeles, I’m pledging to give up one day a week to volunteer for The Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition.  You can follow my adventures here.

What will you commit to?

• Donate now – $7 will feed someone today
• Volunteer – find an event near you
• Sign up for our newsletter and stay involved

P.S. – Watch the video about Jorge Muñoz. We dare you to NOT be inspired.

“Munoz says the idea came to him one day, when waiting to pick up his students at a routine school bus stop. “I saw people throwing away food at a food factory,” he says adamantly, “I thought, why are they throwing that away? I can give those to the hungry people I see on the street everyday.” He asked if he could pick up the perfectly fresh food and take it to the hungry strangers, he’s seen everyday. Strangers whose faces became so familiar.

“Munoz was inspired to help by “God and my Mom. Since I was little, my mom teach me to share, and that’s what we’re doing here.” Although Munoz isn’t getting paid for this second job (remember, he actually has to use own money to do this), he seems so happy in service — Just by the tone in his voice, you can feel his passion for compassion. His eagerness to serve brings him joy. He says he’s happy to have a paying job, so he can continue doing this. “You have to see their smiles, on their faces. When they smile, I always say that’s how I get paid.”

Excerpted from an article by Toan Lam on HuffingtonPost.com.