New Organization Feeds Local Families
Cheryl Byrne, co-founder of Feeding Families Santa Monica, prepares for an event in Santa Monica on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2020 at Hope United LA in Santa Monica, Calif. The organization helps to feed people struggling with food insecurity. (Maxim Elramsisy / The Corsair)
In late March, Suzie Crocker, a woman who works with Hope United LA, received a large food donation from Whole Foods. Unsure of what to do with it, she reached out to Cheryl Byrne, a neighbor of the church and a strong figure in the community. Byrne is now one of the co-founders of Feeding Families Santa Monica. She knew that she had to find people who she could help.
Byrne reached out to Karen Miller, who works in the Santa Monica School District. Through the help of the community liaison, they were able to find 10 families right away that were food insecure and needed help. Byrne, Miller, and Marie Espino began to work every Saturday from a garage making boxes and feeding people.
With growing success, they have come a long way from where they started in March. After a few weeks of donating food boxes, more families began to hear of them. In the span of two weeks, the number of boxes jumped from 34 to 64. Along with this large influx of people in need, came the necessity for more donations, volunteers, and a larger space. Crocker offered her church as a place for the volunteers to gather and make the boxes.
Donations come from many different places such as Sunrise Produce and Food Cycle LA. One of Feeding Families Santa Monica’s goals is to make sure each box contains fresh produce and healthy food, instead of canned vegetables.
One day in April, while walking by McKinley Elementary School in Santa Monica, Byrne noticed their garden was overgrown.
“We cleaned all the plots and went back and now have had 3 harvests of food to go into boxes. That's not only produce, that's super fresh produce, picked on Friday and put in a box on Saturday,” said Byrne.
Feeding Families Santa Monica now feeds 115 families, and that number is still increasing.
“Someone asked me, are you going to cap it at a certain number? I said I will never cap people who need food, I will always find ways to make sure people get food,” said Byrne.
Byrne is determined to not only feed families from the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, but those outside it as well.
Earlier this week they started the weekly 5x5 challenge. The goal of the challenge is to find 5 friends to donate 5 items of food for the boxes. The turnout was great; they received a considerable amount of donations and hope more people take part each upcoming week.
Feeding Families Santa Monica will happily accept more volunteers and food donations. For more information, you can check out their Facebook page, Feeding Families Santa Monica, or their Instagram, @feedingfamiliessm.
