Westside Food Bank helps Angelenos

Photo credit: Catherine Lima

For the past year and a half, Quincy Gibson, inventory administrator for the Westside Food Bank, has distributed food to community members in need across Los Angeles.

Gibson grew up with his single mom and benefitted from the Food Stamp Program, which is now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, but never knew about food distributions.

Almost a quarter of Los Angeles County households are facing food insecurity since July 2022, according to a new study done by the University of Southern California Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research.

“My only worry is making sure we have enough food for everybody,” said Gibson. “You never know the amount of people that come. It could be two people or 300 people. 

More than 25 people lined up at the West Los Angeles Municipal Building parking lot on Friday in March to pick up fresh produce and canned goods at the weekly Pop-up Food Distribution hosted by the food bank. 

Gibson handed out a box of fruit and vegetables and another box of canned goods to each person in line. Some had their own reusable bags and transferred their items in them and returned the boxes to Gibson for recycling. 

Lidia Hernandez, a mother of two, waited in line with her daughter in a stroller to pick up the weekly goods before picking up her son from school. 

“It’s a great help,” said Hernandez. “Our daily expenses as a mother are buying vegetables, fruit and eggs.”

While food prices are expected to grow more slowly in 2023 than in 2022, it is predicted that prices will go up 7.5%, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. 

Also, in the line of people waiting is Maria Antonio who lost her job at Souplantation because of the coronavirus pandemic. 

According to the LA County Economic Development Corporation, between February and April of 2020, 185 thousand jobs were lost within the Food and Beverage Industry. Since then, through October 2020, 88 thousand of those jobs were recovered. 

For Antonio that was not the case. She currently works from home a few days out of the week, and with food prices going up she benefits from the food distribution. 

In 2019, nearly 49% of hospitality employees were Latinos and earned less than the national living wage, according to a study done by LA County. 

“It helps out a lot and it’s healthy,” said Antonio. “This came down well, God bless.”

The food bank opened its doors to the public in 1981 when social service agencies in the Westside community decided to create a warehouse of food for the public. 

Today, they provide nutritious and healthy goods to 153,000 people facing food insecurity, according to their website.

Jacqueline Ashouroof, a 65-year-old local of the West LA neighborhood, noticed that some take more than is needed, which leaves those truly in need to the side. Some bring an extra person along to take extra goods into the same household. 

“Greed is not a good thing,” said Ashouroof. “It’s supposed to be one box per family…the more people that come [in a family] means less boxes and less help. It’s not fair.” 

Every Friday, she makes her way to get her groceries from the food distribution and shares her goods with her neighbor who cannot see. 

A list of locations of food pantries can be found on the Westside Food Bank website. It is recommended to call ahead to verify their hours of operation. 

Aside from obtaining free and fresh food, if eligible, members of the community can receive up to $192 a month per household member with SNAP. Applications are available at GetCalFresh.org or by calling (877) 597-4777