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Tossing Food into the Hands of the Hungry

The L.A. City Council is attempting to make donating surplus food as prevalent as 
               recycling.

Needy families gather at an East Los Angeles church to pick up surplus food donations Monday through Friday.

“When I was growing up we were kind of poor, so this would have helped us out a lot,” said Fernando Garza, who has been volunteering at the Resurrection Catholic Church’s food distribution for two years.

He said donations have gone up little by little as families continue struggling to meet ends meet in the economic downturn.

Torrance Bakery has been helping their cause by donating rolls and pastries left over at the close of each business day.

“Somebody comes so we don’t have to throw it away,” said bakery owner Kirk Rossberg.

Adults from the St. Vincent de Paul Society at the Nativity Catholic Church collect the surplus food and the nearby convent of nuns transport it to the distribution site.

                The Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a similar program for all of its departments to give extra food to the L.A. Regional Foodbank and local non-profits that serve the hungry.

“It highlights the fact that food is going to waste in Los Angeles County while there are hungry people and that’s a problem,” said Jessica Jones, the policy and outreach supervisor for the L.A. Regional Foodbank. “It’s going to require a few different program designs to hit the need from all angles, but this is a really good start.”

By partnering up with Help Feed L.A., an advocacy group working to end hunger in Los Angeles, the council members said they hope to make donating food as common and accessible as recycling. The logistics are currently being fine-tuned by the council’s chief legislative analyst, who is expected to release his report this month.

In Los Angeles, five million tons of food are wasted every year, according to Rick Coca, Councilman Jose Huizar’s spokesman. 

“How do we better utilize perfectly good food? We want it to fill stomachs,” Coca said. “We can’t allow people to fall through the cracks because they might not make it back up. We need to protect folks that are most vulnerable.”
                 Local landmarks are stepping up to the plate to help.  Dodger Stadium donates all leftover hot dogs to the Midnight Mission after each home game, according to Michael Kelly, the mission's public affairs assistant.
                 Because of the economic downturn, demand for food assistance has risen nearly 50 percent in the last four years, Jones said. Ten percent of county residents, or one million people, sought out emergency food services in the last year alone, she added.
                “Especially in a tough economy we know two things happen: need goes way up while actual donations go down,” Coca said. “Any time that we as a city government can step in and help… we definitely should.”

With federal and state Good Samaritan laws already in place, people do not have to fret about liability for food they donate in good faith.

“There shouldn’t be any concern in the public about donating food,” Jones said. “People will be paying attention to whether or not it’s good food. It’s not just going to go straight to somebody.”

The kitchen supervisor at the Los Angeles Mission, a homeless shelter in the Skid Row area of downtown, doesn’t think the program will make a significant difference.

“I don’t see it happening, not coming from the City Council,” Reid Francis said. “I don’t believe it.”

Donations to the L.A. Mission are a “small percentage when it comes down to it,” according to Francis.  He said they buy most food at government-subsidized rates from the Foodbank.

The mission serves 1,800 to 2,000 meals daily, which add up to nearly 600,000 meals a year, according to its director of community partnership, Ivan Klassen. (To see mealtime at the L.A. Mission, check out this photo slideshow.)

“They serve good food down here,” said Larry Green, a homeless man who received a hot dinner from the mission.

“We do it every day, breakfast, lunch and dinner,” said 50-year-old L.A. Mission resident Anthony Gatica.

He said the kitchen staff pumps out a lot of food each day to feed the homeless off the streets as well as the shelter’s residents and employees.

“It feels good giving, serving others,” Gatica said. “Before I die I want to do something with my life. I’m glad I made that step.”

The City Council is also taking that step to help the hungry.

“Every little bit helps,” said Darren Hoffman, communications director at the L.A. Regional Foodbank. “We’re hoping it’ll pick up.”

Social Media Tracker

Three news forums.  Two sites.  One week.

I examined the L.A. Times, CNN and LA Observed on Facebook and Twitter.  How did they use social media to share and gather information?  Read on to find out.

1. L.A. Times City Desk

With upwards of 20 Facebook posts per day, the L.A. Times City Desk covered a wide range of topics: local government, weather, health, education, entertainment, upcoming events (from memorial services to political rallies), sports, features, profiles, columnist pieces, midterm election politics, crime and the courts, celebrities, the economy and international, community and strange news.  Even though the coverage was extensive and included links to interesting photos, the same stories that were posted on Facebook were also tweeted verbatim on Twitter.  I would have liked to see more variation between the sites, perhaps overlapping on important stories while providing diversity in terms of feature, profile and columnist pieces.

The L.A. Times used these social media forums to try to tap into sources for their developing stories.  Here's one example: "Did any of you know Conor Lynch or see the accident? If so and you'd be willing to talk to a reporter, let me know. Thanks."  Another got 11 comments in response: "Do you surf off the SoCal coast? If so, how does news of today's shark attack make you feel? Do you see sharks often? Do you worry?"

Twitter was used for the same purpose, as exemplified when the site manager wrote someone, "Could a reporter call you? Or email? She's not on Twitter. Follow me and I can DM (Direct Message) you info."

I appreciated the honesty of the L.A. Times sites in keeping their audiences updated with their progress on reporting breaking stories: "There's been a shark attack reported in Santa Barbara County today.  We're trying to get info." Another - "LAFD is reporting a 3-vehicle crash involving a school bus in East LA. 1 person dead, as many as 50 injured. More soon" - also serves to prompt the audience to stay tuned.

I also enjoyed the personal touches like "Sorry for the bad editing on my last post. I need coffee." This post received 14 comments and 17 "likes" on Facebook, revealing that other readers agreed.

New media is a great resource for traditional print journalists (i.e., most L.A. Times reporters) to attract readers in new and exciting ways and enabling them to provide feedback.  There wasn't a story post that went by without getting "liked."

On Friday, stories were linked from Facebook to latimes.com.  This approach ended before the day was up, as these links received less responses.  The site returned to having one to two short sentence story descriptions with links to the full articles online.  Many of the posts and tweets were enticingly written, effectively designed to get readers (like me) to click on the story links to read more.

The news posts through L.A. Times social media outlets was new and different, informative and entertaining.

2. CNN

CNN's iReport Facebook page has one to five story posts per day, focusing on features and upcoming events.  I liked the daily iReport challenge, "Be a Hero for..." and the travel photo of the day.  Despite these unique elements, CNN needs to engage its audience more to obtain comments on its posts and not just "likes."  Adding more coverage from distant places, as it does sporadically with posts like "iReporters on the ground in Haiti: Treating cholera outbreak," would help the site form its niche in the expanse of online journalism, build a larger following and gain momentum.

There was too much random news coverage ("Chris Stevens, of New Richmond, WI, broke the world record with a 1810.5 pound monster pumpkin. Check out the goods" and "Monster spiders invade Seattle!!" are just two examples).  I would like to see strange news limited to one story per day and made into more of a site feature. 

CNN did a better job with its Twitter page by providing coverage of about 10 political, national and international news updates with links to the full stories on its website.  The posting of "Today's Most Intriguing People" sets CNN apart from many other news organizations with social media pages.

CNN's Twitter also covers what special guests are set to appear on tonight's Larry King Live, what's currently happening on its televised news channel, where CNN is sending its reporters and what topics will be discussed on upcoming shows as well as when those shows will air.  Here's an example: "CNN's @sanjayguptacnn & @daniellecnn are heading to Haiti to report on the cholera outbreak."

Some of its journalists' posts and stories from CNN's specialized pages are retweeted (designated by RT) on its main page: "RT @AndersonCooper: Video: Yoko Ono recounts meeting John Lenon" and "RE @CNNMoney: Be smart about buying a smartphone."

What's good about this site is that it also asks for direct feedback, as the following tweet demonstrates: "What topic should @richardquest &@alivelshi debate this Thursday on Q&A? Tweet your suggestions with #CNNQandA."

3. LA Observed

First of all, this site doesn't have a Facebook page.  Time to get on that Kevin Roderick and it wouldn't hurt your fan base to make your Facebook profile public too. 

LA Observed should provide links on a Facebook page to its original web content and breaking news updates about the journalism industry.

Thank goodness LA Observed hasn't been missing out on the social media phenomenon entirely! It provides about 10 to 20 tweets during weekdays on its Twitter page with useful information spanning topics from the newspaper industry to job opportunities, travel, weather, traffic, politics, local news from patch.com and more.

To expand its viewership, posts should also be tweeted on the weekends.  The news never stops, so neither should LA Observed.

Social Media - An Avenue for Story Leads

I tested out the new media journalists have started using to track down interview subjects or get unexpected leads on stories.  I just launched a Twitter account, so I focused my efforts on Facebook where I have a larger audience.

A little background... 

I'm in the midst of investigating L.A. City Council's new policy to have city departments and encourage local organizations to donate their surplus food to local food banks, soup kitchens or homeless shelters.

I gave my Facebook friends some background in my first post, which sought any information on my story topic: "I'm working on a story about surplus food donations.  Know of any L.A. venues that donate food to local shelters?  Let me know :)"

This post was my status for about a day and didn't generate any feedback.

I looked to the expertise of the director of original video and social media at Yahoo! News, Anna Robertson, who told me Facebook users are more apt to "like" a post than leave a comment.

With that in mind, I tried a different approach.  Here's what I posted as my second status: "'like' this status if you think donating extra food should be as common as recycling.  Feel free to share why..."

This method--direct instruction--was slightly more successful as I received three "likes."  I was disappointed that I still failed to get any comments.

As a relentless reporter, I tried something different... what I like to call the "short and sweet" approach.  I posted, "Know of any place in L.A. that donates food to the needy?"

Within three minutes I received a comment with a lead I hadn't considered.  Here was the response: "Torrance Bakery! At the end of the day, all of the leftover bake goods are donated to homeless shelters!"  

I pursued it even more by asking, "does the bakery deliver the leftovers or does someone pick them up? do you know what shelters they go to?"

Here was the next response, "I believe the shelters go to the bakery at the end of the day and pick up! But I'm not sure which shelters! You can call and ask for kirk the owner!"

Through this last comment I got some great advice for my story and the name of a source to get in touch with.

Also in response to my final Facebook post, a different person told me many places that are capable of donating surplus food like grocery stories and restaurants don't feel completely absolved from liability with the Good Samaritan law, so I will definitely ask donors more about this topic when I interview them for my story to see what they have to say about it.

What I've taken away from this experience...

Social media is great to track down good interview subjects if you are able to get enough visibility that the right people connect you with the right subjects for your story.

It never hurts to try.  You may be surprised by what your Facebook friends have to say!