Pasadena : Food Program Finds Home

Dorothea Bradley, who has operated an emergency food program from her back porch in violation of city zoning law, has found a new location just days before city zoning officials were to begin proceedings to shut down the program.

The American Friends Service Committee, a national Quaker activist group involved in peace and social rights issues, read about the program’s threatened closure and offered to let Bradley operate out of their local offices at 980 N. Fair Oaks.

“I’m so excited,” said Bradley, who began the food program for Pasadena’s handicapped and poor residents nearly three years ago. Fifty families line up every Wednesday along her driveway for boxes of fresh vegetables, bread and other staples.

Lee Thornton, executive secretary of the committee’s local branch, said Bradley will move in May 13 and operate out of a 30x60-foot office. Thornton said city officials determined last week that zoning laws--which had prohibited Bradley’s food program in a residential area--would allow her to operate from the committee’s offices.

“We feel the provision of food to handicapped people was something that had to continue,” Thornton said. “We are a part of this community. If we were going to be responsive to those needs and our own reason for existence, we didn’t have any choice but to respond.”