LA County Creates Office Of Food Equity To Coordinate Aid

Los Angeles County will have a new Office of Food Equity after a unanimous vote by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

Cinny Kennard, executive director of the Annenberg Foundation and co-chair of the LA County Food Equity Roundtable, said the new office will act as “an air traffic control center” where “the foot soldiers involved day-to-day in trying to help with food insecurity” can all connect.

The new office will expand on the efforts of the L.A. County Food Equity Roundtable, which is a partnership born during the pandemic between the county and three foundations: the Annenberg Foundation, the California Community Foundation and the Weingart Foundation.

Food insecurity, according to the USDA, is “a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.” According to the office of Supervisor Janice Hahn, data show that more than 1 million Los Angeles County households face food insecurity each year, with Black and Latino residents more than twice as likely to fall in the category.

Through the new office, Kennard said, cross collaboration between different community partners like food banks, growers and small markets can happen.

“All of these community-based organizations will now have a central command post to come together to coordinate,” she said. “We discovered (during the pandemic) that there was really no coordination point for everybody's hard work on food insecurity.”

The L.A. County Food Equity Roundtable also outlined a strategic plan to end food insecurity through connecting different entities in the system. In addition to acting as a connector between other groups, the Office of Food Equity will handle zoning policies to facilitate urban farming, help prevent food waste and improve the public’s access to nutrition assistance programs.

Natalie Flores Blackner is the chief executive officer at Nourish LA, a local nonprofit that was formed during the pandemic. When the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders went into effect, Blackner noticed an uptick of parents seeking food on Facebook groups. Wanting to help, she reached out to her local Whole Foods, friends and family for good food that was just ending up in the waste. Then she created “a little food drive in my alleyway to help some of these families that are struggling right now access some of this food.”

“I was so impressed and surprised at the quality of the food that was getting thrown away,” she added. “If one egg is cracked in the dozen, they throw the whole dozen away. If one mushy apple is in the bag, they throw the whole bag away.”

Through the office, Blackner is hoping to gain access to funding so her food drives can reach more people. Currently, her organization hosts food drives at St. Mark’s Church in Venice, the UCLA University Village and another hub in Santa Monica.

“We want to keep going because we're getting emails every day,” she said. “It would be really helpful If they help fund our projects and help us grow and be able to provide good jobs and education around food waste and also help all these places like restaurants and bakeries and grocery stores have a place to bring their items every day so that it doesn't get wasted and people can access it.”

County officials have 90 days to bring a staffing plan and budget for the new office to the board of supervisors.