AVPH volunteers partner up to feed AV’s hungry
They begin lining up at 4 a.m. in the parking lot in front of Antelope Valley Partners for Health, their vehicles filling every space like people waiting for a Black Friday sale.
My friend Ofelia Gandarilla points out the first vehicle, in the first space in the drive-thru line for groceries. That lead vehicle is an older Toyota pick-up with a camper back on it.
“He is always the first,” she tells me.
Twice a month, on the second and fourth Friday, there is a morning food bank event at AVPH on 10th Street West. The food giveaway starts at 8 a.m. and continues until about noon. But the work to organize the event began on Thursday afternoon, the day before.
The groceries to be distributed from the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank arrives on Thursday, when a football team-sized group of volunteers starts the stacking and sorting. There are boxes the size of a case of soft drinks filled with non-perishable foods, beans, peanut butter — the things that sustain life and fend off hunger. Also, truckloads of fresh produce arrive and it has to be sorted and bagged. The effort fills up a large storeroom.
The next morning, about a half hour before the event starts, Karina Lopez is swooping past volunteers and assigning them places in the delivery line, as Kassah Kantiok, another food pantry coordinator, is leading the parking lot attendant volunteers in some light calisthenics and stretches. Kantiok is a hipster, swiveling, stretching and getting the crowd’s enthusiasm up.
The parking lot crew will direct the vehicles in an orderly line that snakes around the parking lot.
It turns out my teammate who works in the Partners for Health finance office is a former co-worker at the Valley Press.
“Let me introduce my son,” Ofelia said. Her son is on the parking lot team, wearing a green day-glow vest and a ready smile.
“My son, Mario Fernandes,” Ofelia said. “He just graduated from Northern Arizona University.”
I ask her about her son’s plans. “He is a lieutenant in the Air Force.”
Wow. OK. What job, I say. “He’s going to be in logistics,” she said and beamed with pride.
Logistics are key to success at the twice-monthly food bank event. I help to load groceries in every vehicle that pulls up to our place in line. The first guy in line, the one with the Toyota, I recognize immediately. He is a longtime breakfast buddy at the weekly Coffee4Vets coffee klatsch. He’s a great guy with a successful military career and is also needing groceries during a pandemic and economic crisis.
“How’s it going, Dennis?” he called out, and I return our greeting, hand over heart. We are wearing masks, but I recognize his veteran ball cap and he recognizes mine.
Every vehicle, some of them newer and some older, battered cars and trucks, carry people. The people in line are older, seniors, and there are also infants in safety seats with their mothers. All races are in the vehicle mix. In the cars are young people, middle-aged — everyone.
They are our neighbors and it is evident the food is going where it is needed. The groceries will provide nutrition and energy. They will stave off hunger.
As quick as the cars pull up, my volunteer teammates lift the boxed food and put the fresh produce bag in the trunk, one to a family or single — or two boxes if another family is listed as being in need.
New research from the University of Southern California warns that food insecurity affects more people than many think.
Before the pandemic, it was estimated that only about 10% of the food from the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank went to those experiencing homelessness and the majority went to lower-income individuals and families who were facing a high cost of living in LA County. Even before COVID-19, many families faced tough decisions to skip meals to pay for rent, medication or other expenses. In addition to skipping meals, many resorted to cheap, unhealthy food to make ends meet.
The pandemic and the related economic fallout has made the situation far worse, the USC study reported.
Pre-pandemic, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank processed over one million pounds of food per week and reached roughly 300,000 people each month. Since the pandemic, the Food Bank is processing four million pounds of food per week and reaching roughly 900,000 people each month.
According to new research by USC Dornsife’s Public Exchange published Sept. 23, food insecurity expands beyond low-income people in Los Angeles County. According to the study, food insecurity peaked in April and remains higher now than before the Coronavirus outbreak.
In 2018, 27% of low-income households struggled with food insecurity, but between April and July 2020, that number spiked to 42%. Roughly 20% of the households that faced food insecurity were not low-income and reported income of $60,000 per year and above, according to the new USC study.
For volunteer or donation opportunities people can find them at www. avph.org or www.lafoodbank.org