HoFoCo Board Member and Volunteer Chef Will Lemon by Shannon Aguiar
A FORMER PAWN SHOP on Vine Street in Los Angeles may still promise guitars, gold and fast cash, but behind the facade is a 3,500-square-foot warehouse filled with thousands of pounds of food in all forms: canned, boxed, frozen, fresh and raw. All of it has been rescued or donated and will go to feed the unhoused and hungry. This is Hollywood Food Coalition’s Community Exchange, where in 2023 alone, almost two and a half million pounds of food destined for landfill has been shared with a network of over 145 nonprofits and used to prepare hot, healthy dinners seven nights a week at a nearby kitchen on Hollywood Boulevard.
On a Tuesday afternoon in late November, the Community Exchange’s shelves are piled with crates of condiments, canned soup, spices, grains, protein bars, bagels, jam and jumbo jars of Skippy peanut butter — to name a few of the grocery items that have come in recently. The cold storage refrigerator is stacked with seasonal produce including 680 pounds of green beans, a half-ton of persimmons and 400 pounds of broccoli. “If you come back in two days probably all of it will be gone,” says Joey Aronhalt, an employee in the warehouse.
HoFoCo is a zero-waste organization, and with incoming food sometimes approaching its sell-by date or on the verge of going bad, time is of the essence. The pace at the Exchange is nonstop: A cart rolls by with 100 meals — turkey tacos, roasted salmon, pumpkin alfredo pasta — from the prepared-food subscription service Everytable bound for Genevieve’s Garden, a community nonprofit that serves lunch at a nearby church. Boxes of fruits, vegetables and protein are assembled on pallets to fill requests from other food pantries and missions such as The Key to the Streets and Hope of the Valley. At one point, somebody swings in with three bags full of bakery boxes spotted with grease. “The daily donuts,” Linda Pianigiani, HoFoCo’s communications representative remarks with a smile. The worker plops the bags onto a scale and writes “34 kg” on a whiteboard. By the end of the day the donuts will be individually wrapped; by morning they will be handed out.
The somewhat shocking truth is there is much more available food where this came from, but HoFoCo’s current facilities aren’t large enough to meet the supply or demand. The organization is actively searching for a new warehouse and kitchen space — a prospect that will likely take both time and money, given the state of Hollywood real estate. A recent macro-grant from the City of Los Angeles, and volunteer-driven fundraisers such as the upcoming second edition of the Kitchen Sink Festival, curated by musician Devendra Banhart at the Lodge Room in Highland Park on December 19 (more on that later), will help toward that goal. But in the meantime, 442 garden salads are sitting in a bin, fresh and perfect and ready to serve.
***
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, an estimated 30-40 percent of the food produced in this country — over 130 billion pounds per year — goes to waste, ending up in landfills instead of feeding the one in six Americans suffering from food insecurity. If that’s not depressing enough, not only does this waste the food and the resources that are required for growth, production and transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency attributes 58 percent of climate-warming methane gas emissions in the atmosphere (greenhouse gasses) to rapidly decomposing food matter in landfill. In California, landfills are the biggest source of methane emissions.
There are several new initiatives in California designed to fight food waste and the environmental damage it causes, including a “Compost Law” that took effect in 2022, requiring businesses and residents to separate “green” or organic matter from other trash for compost. The state hopes to reduce the amount of organic material sent to landfills by 75 percent from a 2014 baseline by 2025. So far, the law hasn’t impacted much as counties struggle to comply with the program. More organic material is going to landfills than in 2014. But while that bureaucracy gets sorted out, the brilliance of grassroots food recovery is that it reverses this vicious cycle, one meal at a time. As HoFoCo’s Executive Director Arnali Ray puts it, “We are using the climate crisis to solve the hunger crisis…It seems like a no-brainer to use this food that would otherwise go to waste to keep people in our communities healthy.”
HoFoCo has served food to hungry people 365 days a year since its founding in 1987 — the only such organization between downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica that operates seven days a week. Even during the pandemic and the more recent hurricane warning, it never missed a Community Dinner service. What began with volunteers handing out sandwiches on a street corner, has now evolved into a gourmet dinner planned and prepared daily by Head Chef Collin Leaver, along with several other kitchen staffers and a dedicated team of volunteers. Leaver, whose resume includes positions at James Beard Award-winning and Michelin-starred restaurants, is one of several recent hires steering this formerly volunteer-run nonprofit through its current growth spurt.
Early in the pandemic, a cluster of circumstances made clear the need for additional staff throughout the organization. For starters, the number of volunteers tapered off for obvious reasons during lockdown, and regular help was needed to keep the kitchen running. At the same time, HoFoCo started receiving requests from restaurants and businesses that were closing and looking to donate goods. Nonprofits seeking food for their communities also started calling. This disconnect between available food and the people who needed it led HoFoCo to found Community Exchange in the spring of 2020. Ray points out that while many social service providers emerged from COVID “tired and burnt out … We have really survived and thrived through this.”
HoFoCo’s Community Wellness program, the third branch of their operation, continues to strengthen this network of on-site partners thanks to the Coalition’s consistent presence at night and on weekends, when other social services are often closed. “A lot of folks were coming to us in crisis, or coming to us with other needs [than hunger],” Ray explains, “And so, rather than turning people away we thought, okay, how can we help them?”
Asher Landau, a longtime HoFoCo volunteer who was hired as Director of Development and Community Engagement in 2021, now oversees the Coalition’s wellness outreach, bringing in new partners and trying to anticipate guests’ physical, mental and spiritual needs. He notes that because of the “low barrier of entry” for the meal program — no ID or personal information is required — people often return night after night, forming bonds and developing trust.
Since 2000, UCLA’s Mobile Clinic Project, the wellness program’s first partner, pulls up every Wednesday to offer free medical care to the unhoused and other vulnerable communities. Once a month, UCLA Mobile Eye Clinic is on site. The list of partners and services is growing: Project Ropa distributes clothing and hygiene kits; Project ID helps with document recovery; Housing Works and The Center in Hollywood assist with housing, and The Center also offers off-site yoga, music and art wellness programming. Community Health Project Los Angeles is a new partner that will be on-site two nights a week, handing out life-saving medications such as Narcan, which can prevent overdoses, and providing Fentanyl and Xylazine testing strips to those with substance-use issues.
According to Landau, when it comes to connecting people to services around substance use, they “try not to be prescriptive,” he says. “We are not case managers…The reasons people use substances are varied. Living on the street can be a very depressing and soul-crushing experience for people, so a lot of times they’re using substances to cope with that … Our goal is to build relationships with these folks that are really authentic and to help navigate them through the system so they can achieve their wellness goals.”
***
Of course, for this organization, wellness begins with nutritious food. Every weeknight, as the sun dips low, people start lining up along Hollywood Boulevard near Bronson Avenue, waiting for the dinner service to begin (the weekend service is on the corner of Orange Dr. and Romaine St.). Not everyone is unhoused; some are recent refugees, or families that cannot afford food after paying their rent. The meals are typically three courses, including salad and dessert, and there is always a vegan option. “The choice is really critical,” says Ray, “because our guests don’t often get that much choice. To give them that restaurant experience that a lot of folks get to experience regularly in LA is a gift; it boosts their mood. It’s a dignified human experience.” Since the pandemic, meals have been packed to-go and they are still following COVID precautions, but, Ray adds, “We can’t wait to go back to dining indoors. That’s how we create relationships, through sitting down and enjoying a meal together.”
Leaver plans each day’s menu around whatever is available at the Community Exchange. A small sampling of favorite recipes can be found on the HoFoCo site, including citrus and soy-poached salmon with roasted broccoli, seared marinated flank steak fajitas and roasted root vegetables with mustard balsamic sauce. Recent collaborations with chefs such as David Maya, who specializes in Peruvian cuisine, and Jing Gao, creator of the Fly By Jing line of condiments (including the wildly popular Sichuan Chili Crisp), have added new flavor profiles. Ingredients come from sources as varied as Whole Foods and Imperfect Foods; local restaurants and bakeries; film studios and catering companies. Almost anything edible could come through the door, but the time a case of caviar was donated after an Oscar party stands out as one of the more memorable “food rescue” moments. And then there was the time the Coalition had to distribute 5,000 pizzas that had been used to make a Guinness Book of World Records-breaking pie.
“The pastries have always been my thing,” says Community Dinner Manager Erin Lovelace, gesturing toward boxes and bags from Tartine, Porto’s, Levain and Sprinkles. “I couldn’t believe that we got Sprinkles cupcakes.” We are in HoFoCo’s rented kitchen on a Wednesday afternoon. I am helping to pack the day’s meal — boneless chicken with barbecue sauce, rice, and purple cabbage with corn — into to-go boxes, while Lovelace washes a sink full of dishes. Hits from Supertramp and the Grease soundtrack pipe through a Bluetooth speaker, and the vibe is upbeat.
Lovelace moved from Chicago to Los Angeles in December 2019, and when she lost her job at a high-end Japanese restaurant to the pandemic just a few months later, she had to find something else, quickly. She took a position as a dishwasher at HoFoCo, assuming it would be temporary, but when other opportunities came up, she found herself wanting to stay. Lovelace was promoted to manager this past spring and says there is something “addictive” about working with others toward a common, civic-minded goal, and having fun doing it. “There’s a grind to working in the restaurant industry,” she says. “You always feel tired. But the energy here feels like it’s being put in multiple baskets instead of filling one basket and taking from another.” Lovelace couldn’t imagine a better community in which to land during times of such unrest. “You see this lack of empathy and love in the news,” she observes. “I don’t see that when I’m here.”
***
Will Lemon, a visual artist and culinary school graduate who is on the HoFoCo’s board, is also here this Wednesday afternoon, mixing a giant pot of zucchini pesto pasta and chatting with Leaver about recent LA dining experiences. (Leaver gives Evan Funke’s Roman-inspired Mother Wolf his top rating.) Lemon is among the number of volunteers who have gone on to shape the direction of the organization, and who Ray calls “part of the family.” Except it’s not his swoon-worthy pasta that has made such an impact, it’s what he’s been cooking up outside the kitchen.
A Hollywood resident, Lemon wandered in one day early in the pandemic. He started volunteering in the kitchen making simple soups, and was soon overseeing a weekly Sunday supper. He recruited friends from the worlds of art, music and entertainment, most of whom had had tours and projects canceled. This grew into a core crew of what he describes as “musical geniuses and badasses.” Musician Devendra Banhart was the first volunteer. He and Lemon have been friends for over 20 years, and Lemon was Banhart’s harmonica player and backup dancer, a role bordering on performance art, when Banhart was a young folk singer. Brazilian singer-songwriter Rodrigo Amarante and Casey Spooner of the band Fischerspooner also came on board, and then Spooner enlisted his friend Karamo Brown from Queer Eye.
The regular Sunday sessions were a grounding force during the pandemic, and the friends used to talk about their “love for the Food Coalition because of the purity of its mission,” Lemon recalls. “They just want to feed people and rescue food.” For him, this became a creed. “We live in California, the fertile crescent. This is high-quality food, and we’re the goalies standing between 15 pounds of watermelon radish and the trash can.” He compares creating the day’s menu to “a cooking version of free jazz…What do we do with this beautiful watermelon radish? We gotta pickle it.” Like Lovelace, Lemon also uses the word “addictive” to describe working for the HoFoCo. “Doing good for your neighbors is meaningful, and once you start, it’s not something you can put down very easily,” he says.
As he thought about other ways to help the organization, the possibility of some kind of musical project began to percolate. Talks with Banhart led to the idea of a live benefit concert, and last November, the first Kitchen Sink Festival was held at the Lodge Room in Highland Park. Curated by Banhart and Amarante, both of whom performed, the evening was hosted by the Iranian-American comedian and actor Mitra Jouhari. Beck came on as the headliner just a week and a half before the show, largely thanks to the fact that his keyboardist, Roger Manning, was a regular Sunday volunteer. Lemon recalls weeping “tears of joy” over a Hand Habits and Angel Olsen cover of Tom Petty’s “Walls” at the sold-out event. In the end, the benefit raised more than $90,000 for the HoFoCo.
Now, Lemon and Banhart, who has reprised his role as curator, plus a team of sponsors and producers, are gearing up for the second edition of Kitchen Sink Festival, returning to the Lodge Room on Tuesday, December 19. John C. Reilly is this year’s host, Amarante and Angel Olsen are returning to the stage, and new performers on the bill include Jim James from My Morning Jacket, Bethany Cosentino from Best Coast, and comedian Kate Berlant, whose one-woman show, Kate (directed by Bo Burnham), is coming to the Pasadena Playhouse in January. It seems likely that Banhart will perform, but as he will be returning from a tour the day before, this hasn’t been confirmed.
Lemon says it took “a little coaxing” to get the HoFoCo to embrace the idea of a benefit concert, but the event has already become a point of pride. After all, this is Hollywood, and his fellow board members are “the dreamers,” he says. “They’re producers, actors, writers: they make things happen … Especially nowadays, people in the arts want to be able to use their gifts to give back. Kitchen Sink Festival is that opportunity for people.”
***
It’s a beautiful gesture, and any funds raised will help the HoFoCo get even closer to its goal of finding a new home. But after the artists and applause, what remains is the simple mission of saving food and serving dinner to the hungry, every night of the year.
During my Wednesday visit, I watch the UCLA Mobile Clinic van drive up as volunteers fill cups of water and lemonade and stack the meals: 250 with chicken, and 50 vegan, with beans and mixed vegetables. At 6:30 p.m., guests start filing in. A volunteer with a clipboard asks each person if they have been there before, and then directs them to a table to pick up their dinner. Some guests are clearly homeless, lugging multiple bags; others might be migrant workers fallen on hard times; others appear to be in their teens or early twenties, wearing trendy clothes but with the slightly dazed air of people on the verge of being swallowed by the city.
I’m standing behind a table, handing out fresh fruit to those who want it. A few people ask for blankets; one woman asks for leashes for her dogs and to my surprise, three brand-new leashes are somehow procured. But most of the people I interact with just seem pleased to have a pear and an orange to put in their bag. Some want to select for themselves the brightest, orangest orange in the bin, and I am reminded of what Ray said to me about the dignity conferred by choice. At one point, a man approaches the table, his clothes in tatters, his skin so thick with grime it’s impossible to tell his age. “Would you like a pear?” I ask, extending the fruit. But instead of taking the pear, he starts to cry, and for a minute he stands there, sobbing inconsolably. It’s heartbreaking to imagine all he might have lost, and all he needs, so I give him the only thing I have in that moment, which is my presence — just a stranger who sees another in his humanity.
