First week of January, 2020
We launched “Brown Bags for Everyone” in Skid Row with the idea that participants would also carry brown bags in their cars to distribute where ever they saw someone in need.
The brown bags consisted of chips, packaged snacks, a hot dog, fruit, and a drink. Sometimes a freshly baked cookie.
We went out to Skid Row with a taco cart and served 800 tacos for our “Revolutionario North African Tacos for All” Initiative. Skid Row is a neighborhood. Skid Row residents, unhoused or housed, are residents of Skid Row.
We chose Skid Row as the first area to distribute, because during a pandemic the most vulnerable, susceptible, and exposed must be served first.
Our Skid Row initiative came to a screeching halt as news of the novel coronavirus kept evolving and breaking. We had the goods, but we didn’t want to distribute ourselves for fear of being vectors of Covid-19 in Skid Row. We tried partnering with established distributors in Skid Row to no avail.
We never stopped distributing food and hot meals on Jefferson Blvd between Vermont and Normandie. We recently found a homeless camp of 10 people living. We have been doing this for almost 5 years.
Photos taken before Pandemic and shelter-in -place
February 16, 2020
We reached out to a Korean American Episcopalian reverend and the 25-30 unhoused Korean seniors he shelters. We read about him and the seniors in the LA Times a couple of years ago.
We were able to immediately upgrade their living environment with a brand new stove within the first week we started serving them. Chinese American comedian Kristina Wong donated $1500 from her laundromat fundraiser for us to order a brand new washer and a dryer for the seniors. We purchased cleaning supplies, diatomaceous earth for vermin control, and gave the seniors masks and gloves. They have achieved food security through our ongoing donations of food. We had social services assess them and intake some of them into rapid rehousing.
Our unhoused senior initiative rapidly expanded and grew to assist API (Asian Pacific Islander) allover LA and some in Orange County.