The Brief

Karlen Nurijanyan could barely afford a grilled cheese while he attended Santa Monica College in 2010. Fourteen years ago, there was little support for food-insecure students and a larger stigma for those seeking out basic needs.

In the years since, he has started a nonprofit, Student LunchBox, that delivers fresh produce, canned goods, grains, dairy, meat, and poultry across 10 Southern California community colleges and university pantries, helping students in need get easier access to food.

A 2023 fall survey by the Community College League of California found that nearly half of California community college students are food insecure. Rates have improved by about 3% since 2019 — because of pantries and basic needs offerings.

Alone on minimum wage

Two years after emigrating from Armenia with his family in 2008, Nurijanyan enrolled at SMC. He lived alone, without a vehicle and surviving on minimum wage. While financial aid covered some expenses, he found himself constantly looking for his next meal.

“I was only making $11 an hour,” said Nurijanyan of his time in Santa Monica. “The situation got so severe that I would sleep in the middle of my classes so I wouldn't feel the hunger.”

Nurijanyan later found student aid at the university level, citing UCLA’s Co-Op as a monumental step in reaching his basic needs. He graduated from UCLA, got a master’s degree at California State University, Long Beach, and eventually landed a job in human resources. But during the pandemic, he left that career to work at a Trader Joe’s in Westwood.

He saw glimpses of his past: hungry college students looking for their next meal in an uncertain time.

Creating the change

Nurijanyan embarked on his dream and worked to create a nonprofit organization he wished he could have used at his time in community college. He opened Student LunchBox (SLB) in 2019.

Student LunchBox creator Karlen Nurijanyan.

(

Courtesy of Karlen Nurijanyan

)

Armed with a tent, a couple tables, crates of food, student volunteers, and a good playlist, the nonprofit holds pop-up food distributions at campuses. It also works to destigmatize food and financial insecurity by bringing the distribution process out in the open.

Today, SLB serves around 4,500 students per month across 10 Southern California campuses. And Nurijanyan’s statistics reveal that the need is prevalent; SLB recorded a 58% increase from 2022, with more than 118,000 total visits in 2023.

One of those campuses is Los Angeles Valley College in the San Fernando Valley. Every Thursday, the college has a “Monarch Market” where food is available to not just students, but community members. Tables are set up across the wall of the Campus Center building, with fruits and vegetables piled high in plastic crates. Along with the produce, there are two coolers filled with meat, dairy, and chicken, and three racks off to the side stuffed with canned goods, oil, and grains.

The line forms almost an hour before the 11:30 a.m. scheduled start time, with people getting their reusable market totes ready.

“I look like I’m over here trick or treating,” said LAVC business major and father of five Christian Guevara as he waited in line with his empty bag. “I mean, it’s a good day today to start out with this positive vibe.”

History major Malik Ervin has been attending the pop-ups since last summer. He said it’s like ‘free groceries every Thursday.’

Sustainability impact

Nurijanyan had no donors in SLB’s early days. He sourced all the food himself, going to the grocery stores and seeing mass amounts of food waste. That is where SLB’s mission statement sprouted: Rescue the “imperfect” food and donate to college students in need.

Food Forward Inc. and the Food Bank of Southern California both provide the organization with produce that would be otherwise wasted from backyard trees, public orchards, farmers markets, and grocery outlets.

While Nurijanyan cannot provide ready-to-eat grilled cheeses to students in need, he can provide the ingredients to make it themselves— for free.

As local news organizations nationwide navigate funding cuts, rapid changes in technology and shifting audience habits, building relationships directly with communities has become more important than ever. It’s also something newsrooms don’t have to do alone.

On June 27, LAist, The LA Local and 12 other L.A.-area newsrooms came together to meet community members at coffee shops across Los Angeles County. We called it Local News Day LA.

Here are five things we learned from holding this event for the first time, why it was worth it, and how other local newsrooms can organize their own events.

1. Communities will show up when you show up

This pop-up event, organized by The LA Local, allowed residents across the county to meet the journalists covering their communities.

A total of 14 media partners participated. In addition to LAist and The LA Local, newsrooms included CalMatters, LA Public Press, L.A. Taco, Calo News, Long Beach Post, The Eastsider, Los Angeles Reporting Collective, LA Sentinel, Q Voice News and USC Annenberg Media.

More than 400 people participated in the event by talking with a local journalist. For some, it was the first time they'd ever heard of that newsroom.

While LAist and The LA Local have both made it a recurring practice to meet community members in person to hear what's on their minds, many other newsroom partners didn't have experience with this kind of event. Afterward, journalists at some of those newsrooms said they were surprised that local residents actually wanted to meet them and share story ideas or feedback on recent coverage like the Lineage Fire in Boyle Heights.

CalMatters spoke with community members at Yia Caffe in Boyle Heights for Local News Day LA.

(

The LA Local

)

Others were also amazed at people’s willingness to travel from coffee shop to coffee shop to connect with as many media partners as possible.

Local News Day LA gave them a reason to come out and partners to help with the logistics and outreach — and people showed up to meet them.

2. What we heard from residents checked our assumptions and shaped our reporting

LAist spoke with dozens of community members at Café Calle in South Central for Local News Day LA. Among other topics, they shared with us that the effect of the immigration raids is still present in South Central, the neighborhood needs more spaces and resources for school-age kids, and that residents are frustrated by the amount of trash on the streets, even after cleaning it up themselves.

At a few coffee shops around L.A., The LA Local and Boyle Heights Beat spoke with residents in Koreatown, Inglewood and Boyle Heights. At OpenMarket, folks shared their concern regarding street safety.

At Asteroid Vinyl Cafe in Inglewood, residents expressed frustration over what they said was lack of transparency on Destination Crenshaw’s timeline for completion. And at Picaresca Cafe, community members shared their thoughts on the elected officials’ response to the Lineage Fire that impacted Boyle Heights and East LA.

The Long Beach Post staff spoke with community members at Wrigley Coffee in Long Beach for Local News Day LA on June 27.

(

Kris Kelley

/

The LA Local

)

The Long Beach Post connected with residents at Wrigley Coffee in Long Beach. Some asked for more coverage of small businesses, more coverage in West Long Beach and more investigative reporting.

These conversations reflected what people were thinking about long after the day's headlines had faded and gave participating newsrooms strong signals about how to focus their time and energy next.

3. Collaboration can be more powerful than competition

Local News Day LA was the first collaboration held across all our news partners — and it started small. In 2025, LAist and The LA Local shared best practices and tips with each other from our respective experiences tabling and meeting community members to see what we could learn.

We then started brainstorming a larger collaboration, eventually rallying our partner newsrooms and holding a workshop on what we learned about planning a successful tabling event, engaging residents and collecting feedback to influence our journalism.

Q Voice News spoke with residents at Hot Java in Long Beach for Local News Day LA.

(

The LA Local

)

Local News Day LA showed that collaboration can strengthen local journalism. In an industry where newsrooms often compete for scoops, audiences and resources, the event demonstrated what’s possible when they work together to listen to communities and better serve residents.

4. Partnerships with local businesses can benefit everyone

While Local News Day LA was primarily about connecting residents with their local news outlet, it was also about supporting and elevating local businesses — each newsroom partnered with coffee shops across L.A. The LA Local supported all media partners with $250 to provide free coffee to residents that came out and connected.

Los Angeles Reporting Collective engaged with community members at Spoke Bicycle Cafe in Frogtown for Local News Day LA.

(

The LA Local

)

Newsrooms got a chance to see the kind of relationships coffee shops already had with people in the neighborhood. LAist journalists learned what a trusted community hub Café Calle was for residents nearby — and we're already making plans to go back. Coffee shops participating in the event also received additional foot traffic while also offering a space for community members to have conversations with journalists and each other.

5. Any newsroom can do this — here’s how

The LAist community engagement team tabled at the Crenshaw Farmers Market on July 11.

(

Sabrina Sanchez

/

LAist

)

An LA Local cafecito event at Asteroid Vinyl.

(

Amir Vera

/

The LA Local

)

If you're at a newsroom that's never done a pop-up community tabling event, you can get started on your own even without a big collaboration. Here's a quick checklist:

• Reach out to the local business or program in a specific community you want to engage with.
• Clearly outline your goal for tabling. Is it to hear about a specific topic or is it more general?
• Promote your event. Talk about it on your social media, newsletters, website and any other format you have to engage with your audience.
• Tell community members about your organization! Now is the time to distribute merch or resources you might have. LAist has shared a resource on how to talk to a journalist when at tabling events.
• Take notes! You’ll want to reflect on them later.
• Have people sign up so you can follow up. Think about a quick check in through a QR code or physical sign-in sheet.
• Plan out what is next from what you’ve heard. Reflect on the response and share immediate follow ups for news coverage.

For more information about how to be a part of LAist’s reporting, visit LAist.com/Community. If you want to read more about The LA Local’s community engagement work, visit TheLALocal.org.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass will hold a public community forum Thursday to provide an update on the cleanup at the Lineage warehouse fire site as the company races to beat a Friday deadline to remove all the food waste. 

The hybrid webinar/community meeting begins at 6 p.m. Thursday. Though residents will have the opportunity to watch in person at Lou Costello Jr. Recreation Center in Boyle Heights, Bass, other elected leaders and guest speakers will join virtually via Zoom. Community members can also participate via Zoom.

It’s been almost two months since the Lineage cold storage warehouse caught fire and caused a deluge of issues for residents in Boyle Heights, East L.A. and surrounding communities. Families continue to navigate a maze of resources from city and county entities and deal with the ongoing smell of rotting food, flies and pests. 

The forum will address “the status of warehouse clean-up and highlight available resources for residents, workers, and small businesses,” according to Bass’ office. 

As of Wednesday, Lineage said it has removed 92% of the food waste from the site and is determined to meet the mayor’s 45-day deadline Friday. 

Bass’ office did not immediately return a request for more information on the community forum and who will be in attendance. 

A year after former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do reported to federal prison to serve time for bribery, evidence continues to surface of widespread corruption and mismanagement of taxpayer dollars during his time in office.

A county report released Wednesday found that millions of dollars in COVID-era contracts and grants were directed by Do and another top county official with no competitive bidding and little to no accounting of how the money was spent. Overall, the report paints a picture of a local government facing an unprecedented public health crisis, flush with federal relief dollars, but with minimal guardrails to ensure those dollars were properly spent.

For example, Do awarded a $500,000 small business grant in May 2021 to Bridgecreek Realty Investment Corp. to expand outdoor dining in Little Saigon during the pandemic. But the audit noted that the contract never required Bridgecreek to provide supporting documentation for how the money was spent — such as invoices or receipts. In the end, there is no documentation for how more than half of the taxpayer funds were used.

LAist left a voicemail with Frank Jao, owner of Bridgecreek, requesting comment and will update this story if we receive a response.

The audit also details the numerous times that top county officials were alerted to, but didn’t act on, potential irregularities regarding millions in county funds awarded to a nonprofit connected to Do’s adult daughter, Rhiannon Do. The audit details one occasion in which Clayton Chau, the former county health care director, reprimanded a subordinate for raising concerns and stated “that Supervisor Do was a lawyer and he would know if there was a conflict.”

Chau did not return a text and message from LAist left on his voicemail. We will update this story if we receive a response.

Frank Kim, the former Orange County chief executive, was also interviewed by the auditors. The audit said he was also aware of the alleged conflict of interest, but failed to consult with the county’s top lawyer at the time. Instead, according to the audit, he relied on the word of Do’s then-chief of staff, Chris Wangsaporn, who assured Kim there was no conflict.

LAist left a voicemail on Wangsaporn’s cellphone seeking comment and will update this story if and when we receive a response.

“It’s not an excuse, but that was a strange time,” Kim, the former county CEO, told LAist on Wednesday. Referring to the pandemic and the audit’s findings, Kim added: “None of the processes were really set up to deal with emergencies.”

Kim told LAist he had trusted the supervisors and top county staffers.

“I never thought there would be fraud," he said. “These were people I had worked with for a long time. I never thought they would do something like that.”

Several county supervisors were quick to react to the audit findings, calling for even deeper investigation into what Supervisor Donald Wagner called “potential additional abuses of taxpayers’ dollars.”

Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who was elected to replace Do, said Do and Chau had “scammed taxpayers in the most difficult time of their lives.” She also said the audit showed the county had “routinely bypassed its own rules” for contracting with outside entities.

Supervisor Katrina Foley said the report exposed “deficiencies in oversight and accountability that the board continues to address,” adding that the county must complete the next two scheduled phases of the forensic audit to “uncover remaining problems, strengthen our controls, and protect taxpayers from corruption and abuse.”

The backstory

The new report is the result of the second phase of a forensic audit of major pandemic-era contracts ordered by the O.C. Board of Supervisors in the wake of the Do scandal. The outside firm Weaver is conducting the audit.

Do pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge in 2024 following a more than year-long investigation by LAist that found he directed some $13 million in taxpayer funds to an organization affiliated with his daughter, Rhiannon, who was a student at the time. Most of that money was slated to provide meals and services for needy residents of Do’s district during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead, at least $550,000 of the funds was rerouted back to Do and his two daughters in the form of bribes, according to federal officials, while just 15% was used to feed residents.

Do will complete his first year in prison on Saturday. He’s scheduled for release in June 2029, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

How to watchdog your local government

One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention. Your city council, board of supervisors, school board and more all hold public meetings that anybody can attend. These are times you can talk to your elected officials directly and hear about the policies they’re voting on that affect your community.

• Read tips on how to get involved.
• The Orange County Board of Supervisors meets on alternating Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. at 400 W. Civic Center Drive, Santa Ana. You can check out the O.C. Board of Supervisors full calendar here.
• Learn how to submit a public comment to the O.C. Board of Supervisors.