The fall quarter is coming to a close, and most students living
in the dormitories have plenty of meal-plan swipes left over.
At the end of every quarter, most students who do not use all of
their meal swipes have the opportunity to donate food to a charity
that provides homeless people on Skid Row with a hot meal instead
of letting the swipes go unused.
This week, for every four swipes, one large pizza with three
toppings and six cans of Coke will be delivered to the homeless by
volunteers called Vincentians of the Society of St. Vincent de
Paul’s UCLA Youth Conference, a Catholic charity program.
“At the end of every quarter we collect meal swipes from
dorm students with a Premier meal plan,” said Lorelei
Alvarez, the president of the Bruin Vincentians. “Otherwise,
the leftover swipes will go to waste.”
Last quarter, primarily through word of mouth, the meal swipes
for pizzas for the homeless created enough attention and
cooperation from students to fill about three pick-up trucks and a
small Toyota Corolla with pizzas, Alvarez said.
“It gets pretty hectic every time this is done,”
said Rosemarie Caroche, Vincentian vice president.
“We’re a small group but we get a lot done.”
Alvarez said students deliver the pizzas to Skid Row after 9
p.m. over several days in the ninth week of every quarter. With no
more than 10 Vincentians, they set out in the evenings, going from
block to block on Skid Row as a group, distributing pizzas to
hundreds of homeless people.
But students involved in the program said their work is about
more than delivering food.
“The food isn’t the primary reason we do this; it is
also to comfort these people and show them that we care,”
Alvarez said. “Many of the homeless and volunteers have
gotten to know one another by name.”
It is not only the body that they strive to nurture, but also
the soul, Caroche said.
The small meal-swipe contributions can go a long way in not only
providing food, but also bridging societal gaps by connecting with
homeless people on a personal level, Alvarez said.
“I loved it every time that I went,” said Richard
Kim, an alumnus and creator of the meal-swipe donation program.
“It’s like a party where you get to talk to these
people face to face and personally hand them slices of
pizza.”
Kim came up with the meal-swipe donation program to feed pizzas
to the homeless six years ago, during his first year at UCLA.
“I realized that most students always had leftover swipes
at the end of each quarter that could be given away,” Kim
said. He wanted to give something to the homeless that he himself
would enjoy ““ hot, fresh pizzas with a side of Coke.
The first time Kim delivered food to Skid Row, he went with one
other friend after collecting 30 pizzas from meal-swipe donations
from dorm students during the ninth week of the quarter.
Two years later, Kim went on to establish the Society of St.
Vincent de Paul’s UCLA Youth Conference during his third
year, and the meal-swipes-for-pizzas tradition has been carried on
with the Society for the last four years.
Alvarez’s goal is to reach at least 250 homeless people
and provide them with a hot meal, comfort and support this
week.
Since the fall quarter ends near the holiday season, it is the
busiest time of the year for this organization, said Brian
Pickering, St. Vincent de Paul’s public relations
coordinator.
“The Society wants to make the season brighter and give
these individuals hope for the future,” Pickering said.
The UCLA St. Vincent de Paul Conference is just one of the
hundreds of conferences across the Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa
Barbara counties, Pickering said.
There are now more than 900,000 members in the Society of St.
Vincent de Paul worldwide in 130 countries and five continents,
according to the Society’s Web site.
Alvarez said donating these extra meal swipes is a way for all
UCLA students to give a little and help a lot in recognizing a
downtrodden part of society that must be recognized and cared
for.
Students who want to donate leftover swipes can do so by
contacting Alvarez by Wednesday of this week via e-mail at
svdp@ucla.edu.
From Wednesday though Friday, students who choose to donate must
order pizza online from the UCLA dinning services Web site in the
morning.
On that same evening, they must pick up their pizzas and bring
them to the Vincentians who will be preparing and loading up cars
with food outside of Rieber Hall.