It's been incredibly hot the past week so our focus this week was to provide plenty of cold water and ice along with the lunches. Our friend Tiffany volunteered to help me out this week in Mere's absence.
Tiffany.
These burger buns were on sale and were much larger than sandwich bread, making for a hearty sandwich. They smelled delicious! We included the regular cheese and crackers, cereal bars, and ripe peaches.
We froze some water bottles overnight, cooled the rest of the bottles in an igloo inside the car and bought these large containers to fill with ice. Cold water was a relief in the 100 degree+ weather we've been having. I think we will do this again next week!
Thank you to everyone that purchased a print, donated with our new Google cart, or donated clothing and food items. We were able to raise a good amount of money for Lunch Bunch with the print sale! You can still purchase the printhere.
As for the donation cart, it works just fine despite the button being cut off the page. Still working on that part...
Apologies for the late post, the following pictures are from last week's trip. There will be a new post on this week's trip in a couple days.
Last week's items. We made 60 meals.
The clothing was donated by Mere's boss. Some of items were brand new with tags! Thank you!!
Mere and I teamed up again on Monday for a Lunch Bunch dinner. We made 32 packages this week and were able to get the meals out to people before they fell asleep. Our two favorite gentlemen were in good spirits and happy to see us.
Next week, we are thinking of perhaps asking them if there is anything specific they are in need of. Up to this point we have not asked any questions whatsoever, personal or otherwise. We didn't want to pry or make anyone feel uncomfortable. However, a couple of the people we visit regularly have been more talkative and we would LOVE to know their names.
Food 4 Less!
This is not a small piece of bread, its a big piece of cheese!
These burger buns worked out really well, I hope we can buy these next time as well. They don't get soggy as quickly as the thin sliced bread.
My friend Eliza came by and dropped off three bags of donated clothing! Thanks, Eliza!
Eliza's donated blanket went to a shirtless man who was trying to build a fire because he said he was cold. We went by to check on him and his fire and, fortunately, it was being extinguished by police. At least his blanket will keep him warm.
The smaller sized women's clothing and a fanny pack went to a young person from the blanket-fort community.
Our favorite lady got a new purse, jeans, belt and t-shirts and her husband got new collared shirts.
The rest of the women's clothing and shoes will be taken to the shelter.
This week therewas a new sandwich bread, new partner, new items in the lunch, but the same quest. Eyal and I were taking care of Los angles while Ana was working on Lunch Bunch in Fresno with Ara and their friend.
The day started great, I picked up our groceries from Food For Less and supplies from a 99 Plus store.
I became discouraged at the grocery store because all of the bread was so thinly sliced. I decided on soft delicious smelling bread rolls. Since we were only preparing 24 lunches. I thought this was a great time to test out new bread options.
Once at Eyal’s apartment we started to set up an assembly line of items to make little necessity kits. The necessity kits included: Spoons, Chap sticks, Toothpick/floss, safety pins, q-tips and small towels.
Once we had the kits done we cleaned and disinfected the kitchen in order to start slicing, chopping for the sandwich production. Chopping all the veggies at once saves a ton of time.
Once you have made so many sandwiches before it is easy to guesstimate how many tomatoes, cucumbers and onions need to be sliced.
Setting the veggies in a divided container is great for easy grabbing access.
Now it was time to slice and mustard the breads. These rolls were thick, but soft and are easy to chew. I didn’t have to worry about this bread crumbling, getting soggy or drying out.
Here is a quick sandwich assembly video.
So inside each Lunch Bunch bag there was: a sandwich, apple juice, crackers, grapes, banana, gelatin cup, cookie, towel and a necessity kit. (Some bags did not have two fruits).
Now that the packing was done it was time to hand out the meals, this is easily the best part of Lunch Bunch!
It was close to 7 when we left to Los Feliz, we had to visit some very important people. It was great to show Eyal what we do each week and for him to get a chance to meet some new favorite people in my life.
We also went to the blanket community, a home made out of blankets constructed by a group.
The couple we usually see wasn’t there but a lovely person was there to take lunches for everyone.
Now it was time to head to downtown to give out the rest of the meals.
The rest of the night went smoothly, everyone was very accepting. Lunch Bunch Week 8 was amazing, just like always! One disturbing thing is that each time I venture to skid row I see less and less people. Scary.
Thank you from Lunch Bunch for reading, our blogs and thank you Eyal for being our newest Lunch Bunch person.
Mere and I split up our Lunch Bunch duties this week because I was out of town. She did half in LA, and I did the other half in Fresno with Ara and our friend Greg.
We drove downtown to the 4 or 5 blocks surrounds Poverello House (a shelter) where the homeless occupied.
This area seemed more clean and organized than LA. Most people had tents set up and Poverello House even had a closed off area of tents that served as temporary shelter.
Village of Hope provides temporary shelters for the homeless.
I'm glad we were able to try a new city for Lunch Bunch. The people again were friendly, honest, and happy to receive the meals and cold water. It was very hot in Fresno and I noticed a lot of people were sunburnt. LA has been getting very hot during the day too. Perhaps we should set aside a small budget for sunblock and/or hats to shade the sun.
Lunch Bunch consists of two friends that get together once a week to create home-made meal packages to pass out to the homeless of Los Angeles, CA. Email us: Lunchbunchco@gmail.com
