Driving out hunger in Los Angeles

While most UCLA students do not have to decide between paying rent or buying groceries, many Los Angeles residents struggle against hunger every day.

To help alleviate the problem, Transportation Services is sponsoring a food drive to benefit the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank across campus until Dec. 17.

Darren Hoffman, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, said many residents across Los Angeles County cannot afford to feed themselves and their families.

“The housing cost is really high in Los Angeles and there’s a high homeless population,” said Robert Richter, administrative assistant for UCLA Transportation Services. “The Los Angeles Regional Foodbank provides food for over a thousand subgroups ““ they feed millions of people a year.”

UCLA’s goal is to collect at least 6,500 pounds of food, said David Connors, business analyst for Transportation Services.

The food will be collected all across campus at various locations and donors can drive up and drop off items, including canned meat, canned fruits, personal care items, coffee and tea items and other nonperishable goods.

“People can drop off food at any parking kiosk,” Richter said. “We also have barrels at the John Wooden Center and the parking and transportation offices.”

Food will also be collected during basketball games in Pauley Pavilion and at other campus locations like the Hill, Bruin Plaza and the Court of Sciences during the drive, Richter said.

But Transportation Services and the Foodbank have their work cut out for them, due to the large number of families and people who lack the money to pay for groceries.

Hoffman said one out of every 10 people is at risk of hunger in Los Angeles County, which includes people not often thought to be at risk such as working families, senior citizens, children, single-parent families, disabled individuals and the unemployed.

Of those who are hungry, 28 percent are children and 15 percent are senior citizens.

There are also multiple classifications for people who cannot afford food, Hoffman said.

Those who experience food insecurity have limited or uncertain access to nutritionally adequate and safe foods or have a limited or uncertain ability to acquire food in socially acceptable ways.

Those who experience food hunger experience the uneasy or painful sensations caused by the lack of food or the recurrent and involuntary lack of access to food, according to a statement released by the Foodbank.

The Foodbank, which is helping to run the food drive at UCLA, has been around for almost 35 years as a private, nonprofit, charitable organization and provided food for over 674,000 people last year alone, Richter said. The Foodbank doesn’t serve any single shelter or group, but rather provides food for thousands of subgroups.

“The Los Angeles Regional Foodbank is a food collection agency that provides food for 900 nonprofits across L.A. County,” Hoffman said. “Last year we distributed 38 million pounds of food.”

UCLA and the Foodbank partnered after Connors expressed interest in holding a food drive.

“I used to work at UCSB and we held a food drive there,” Connors said. “It started pretty small and then it grew ““ by the third year we were close to 35,000 pounds of food, and we were one of the largest providers of food for shelter in Santa Barbara.”

Connors said he believes UCLA’s status as a large school will help the Foodbank collect even more food.

“We’re aiming conservatively for the amount of food we raise this year, but once we’re established we should raise up to 30 or 55 thousand pounds of food,” he said. “We’d like this to be an annual UCLA event.”

While the fledgling program has only recently begun on campus, the UCLA community has already been extremely supportive, Richter said.

Richter said working with Transportation Services has been especially helpful due to their pervasiveness on campus.

“We have such a great reach throughout campus,” Richter said. “There’s no other organization that has as big of a reach or contact with the student body, staff and faculty.”

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