Week 3 - Sunday Afternoon

This morning I decided to check out the $1 sale at Jet Rag for some clothes to give out with the lunches and I found lots of nice, thick jackets in good condition all for $1 each! The clothes were happily accepted and I'm really glad we decided to add clothing to our trips because they are desperately needed. I also bought some t-shirts, sweaters and pants. Its heartbreaking to see how dirty some people's clothes and hands are. We are thinking of a possible drop-off location where food and clothing can be donated to Lunch Bunch.

A special thanks to Sheri, who's donation helped provide for a portion of the lunches and clothes this week. We were able to make 48 lunches this week instead of 30!


Grocery shopping took a little longer than expected, as Mere and I have not practiced our basic math skills in some time. Luckily, we calculated efficiently and used every item we bought without any leftovers, aside from a few pieces of bread ends.


Look at those large, beautiful tomato slices.


We're trying to keep everything as sanitary and clean as possible, which included cleaning my entire kitchen before we got started.


This week was a bit more heart-wrenching than usual because we went out during the day when more people were awake and lively. After driving around hollywood for a bit, we went to downtown and scoped out what skid row is like during the day. We are still a little scared of large crowds because we don't have enough food for everyone and want to make sure we do this as safely as possible.

The first hour was spent on the side streets where only two or three people were camped out, then we decided to brave a more crowded street near Central and 5th St. and the remaining 30 or so lunches and clothing disappeared within 10 minutes. Mere did an exceptional job of zig-zagging the car through the street to reach the people waving to us.

We saw children for the first time with their mother or father. We saw groups of people looking out for each-other and taking extra lunches back to their friends. We ran out of food and clothes very quickly and there were still people on that street we didn't reach. I hate running out of food people can see us giving it out. It was emotionally draining to say the least.

One man accepted our lunch, picked up his belongings from inside the dumpster, closed the gate and walked away to eat his fresh food. It makes me so happy that we were able to get a couple of people away from eating out of the dumpster, at least for one meal.


One thing we learned this week is that we need to make sure to only use soft and easy to chew items in the bags. A lot of people were missing a good portion of their teeth. I noticed people were eating the sandwich or banana first, both easy to bite into. We are going to replace the hard granola bars with another fruit, maybe grapes. Also we have yet to find a healthy alternative to chips. They didn't have the baked chips at Food 4 Less, but the prices for everything else was quite reasonable. We may try Smart and Final next week, just to compare prices and check out our options for snacks.


We didn't get the opportunity to take some pictures in action, but we found this nice gentleman painting a mural tribute to Michael Jackson.

“If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.”
-Michael Jackson, RIP

Hope and Donations

I am very excited to be doing Lunch Bunch with Ana. In the short amount of time we have been planning and executing the idea of Lunch Bunch I have noticed a very positive change in me and those around me. I think that there will be a positive domino effect with those around us because of the feeling that comes from doing something nice for someone else. The feeling of hope and well wishing for another is strongly contagious!

Lately I have been spending a lot of time explaining the idea of Lunch Bunch; from my simple explanation comes a feeling of hope. This strong feeling is so important for Lunch Bunch because we do need word of mouth. Telling someone about Lunch Bunch can cause much change, spark interests, bring in donations and create awareness.

Although material donations are extremely important, having Lunch Bunch discussed and more known is a cognitive donation. We are very appreciative for any contribution: verbal, edible or spendable! We are aware that these are hard times and giving might not be possible, but the gift of idea is free and priceless!

As far as what we hope for Lunch Bunch- it is happening! We both look forward to making and delivering the sandwiches. We talk to each other about what we think and how we can improve. I know that when I talk to Ana about Lunch Bunch I get an overwhelming feeling of hope and awesomeness. My feelings come from knowing what could be and seeing us working well together and within the community. I can say that I am happy with how Lunch Bunch is turning out and what we have done together so far. I am also very proud of Ana Bags and all the works she has done! She has also sold amazing prints for this good cause; I could say she steam driving the train!

There is so much potential for all sorts of good things to come, thank you to everyone who is doing their best for change!

Print Sale for the Lunch Bunch!

***Update - the first one sold, but I have added a new one and changed the link. If you missed the last print, check the link again!***

If you'd like to donate to the Lunch Bunch, and get a little gift in return, I have donate all proceeds from my Cindy print to Lunch Bunch.

To purchase, visit my etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6501951

Poll

I'm having a moral dilema.

I buy only organic products when cooking for myself and my family. Since Mere and I are paying for this project ourselves (and have had no donations so far), we wanted to feed as many people as we could on a low budget, which means buying products I normally wouldn't buy for myself.

Should we spend a little more and buy food that is organic and safe (sans rBGH, GM products) and feed less people, or does this not matter when it comes to being close to starvation? Should we at some point switch over to organic products only?

Lunch Bunch's Second Week

Today, Mere came over at 5pm and we put together this week's Mac Bags in about 2 hours. We figured out a faster way to assemble the sandwiches, but still need to work out the kinks in assembling the bags. We got a late start but 7pm is dinner time.

Today's bags consisted of:
1 bottle of water
1 ham or turkey, cheese, veggie sandwich
1 apple
1 oatmeal cookie (the soft yummy kind)
1 granola bar
1 bag of chips
1 random piece of candy I found in my cupboard
A bunch of napkins

This week the items came from a few different places to reduce costs. Last week's cost of food was $75 for 25 bags because I shopped at Vons, this week's was $60 for 32 bags. Mere calculated the prices of similar items at Food for Less and next week's bags will cost even less!

We're going to stick with the thick toast bread. I don't know why sandwich bread is cut so thin. Sometimes we are on the road for a few hours and we don't want the bread to be soggy by the time it reaches a person.

These sandwich bags cost way less than the zipper kind. 125 bags for $1!
We like to make piles.


Mere drives us around and occasionally hands the bags out when we're not parked illegally.

We found a man laying in an alley that appeared hurt. We thought his leg was broken. We called the paramedics and they arrived within minutes and took the man away on a gurney to get his insulin IV. He was diabetic, not broken, and hopefully got the treatment he needed.


They blocked us in the alley so we had to wait until they took him away. We'd like to add that these gentlemen took great care and caution waking the man up and moving him, in case in was injured. They were also very friendly.


It took us about 4 hours to find people and pass out the food, while trying to avoid dangerous areas as the streets of downtown LA got darker, specifically where the shelter is. If you've been down that street at night, you can understand why two girls would be uncomfortable being there. I have been keeping my shank in car, just in case. Mase would probably be a good thing to have instead.

For the most part, people have been happy and thankful to accept the food. Those who aren't looking for food have kindly declined, and we appreciate their honesty. One man threw the bag into the street, but kept the water. He had been pretending to sleep in a box on the street, but judging by his super white socks and clean clothes, he probably wasn't homeless. Was it really necessary to throw the bag, though? I'm sure someone else probably picked it up.