MEETING SCARCITY WITH ABUNDANCE
I VANGUARD | SUMMER 2020
t’s a Friday afternoon, and a team of Los Angeles LGBT Center staff members and volunteers are working inside Pride Hall at the Anita May Rosenstein Campus, surrounded by stacks of boxes filled with fresh produce and pallets of boxed and canned food. Nearby refrigerators are filled with gallons of milk.
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All of it is being prepared for distribution as part of the Center’s new Pride Pantry, an initiative launched in May to help people experiencing food insecurity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “I got an email from the Center saying this is available if you need it. And, at this point in time, it’s something I really need,” said a Health Services client named Robert, who lost his job as a server at a
Burbank restaurant at the start of the health crisis.
jam, cold brew coffee, and orange juice.
“I only took as much as I could carry,” said Robert took a bus from Burbank after a happy Pride Pantry client named Yvonne. “Now, I have onions so I can make French getting word about the pantry. onion soup, which I love. I have bread, pota“My job had to let me go, which was toes, and coffee. Do you know what it means unfortunate because I loved my job,” he said to be able to put this on your shelf and know as he looked through a box of produce that you’re not going to go hungry for a week? I included potatoes, romaine lettuce, carrots, can’t thank them enough.” oranges, green apples, cantaloupe, onions, The Center’s Director of Culinary and squash. “I usually think there are other people more in need, so I always hold back. Training and Operations Nick Panepinto is But at this point, anything helps. I’m definitely among the employees from across various departments—AIDS/LifeCycle, Cultural Arts, thankful.” Development, Health Services, Legal SerOn this June day, Robert discovered Pride vices, Marketing & Communications, Public Pantry’s box of dry goods included bread; one Policy, Senior Services, Volunteer Resources, pound each of white rice, black beans, and and Youth Services—who collaborated to pasta; and bottles and cans of pasta sauce, tuna, help coordinate and launch Pride Pantry.
