Fighting the Food Desert
A unique partnership ensures Los Angeles residents covered the basics during COVID19.
Most BHI residents reside in food deserts, leaving very few reliable options for groceries and fresh food. Those limited resources became even more scarce in Los Angeles during the pandemic, when school lunch programs were suspended and local Farmer’s Markets were shuttered. BHI charities worked immediately on fundraising to provide daily meals to our seniors and most vulnerable families through a partnership with EveryTable and funds from the City of Los Angeles and Cedar Sinai. Additionally, we established new partnerships with non-profits to provide Grab’nGos at eight of our public housing sites for school-aged children and looked for partnerships to provide access to produce. The partnership included SEE-LA, Starbucks and the DreamCenter using a California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Specialty Crop Block Grant Program to provide 22,302 pounds of fresh produce and Harvest of the Month specialty crop education program kits to 1,062 households living at Nickerson Gardens, Los Angeles over an eight-week period.
The team was able to survey households to obtain additional information on their current level of food insecurity and eating habits as well as promote local farmer’s markets. BHI and its partners diverted thousands of pounds of produce that would have otherwise gone to waste to those in need.