Thieves Make Off With Food for Poor

A group that distributes food to the poor reported Monday that thieves broke into its South-Central Los Angeles warehouse over the long Thanksgiving weekend and made off with 50,000 pounds of groceries.

The nonprofit group, Love Is Feeding Everyone, collects dented canned goods and dated commodities from supermarkets and bakeries and distributes them through social service agencies and churches to supplement the diets of 30,000 people a week, said Kevin Sites, its spokesman.

Sites said the loss represents about two weeks’ worth of pickups from supermarkets.

He said the organization, known by its acronym LIFE, also gathers food from individuals.

“We’re hoping the community will be generous in helping us to restock the warehouse,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sites said, LIFE will attempt to provide food to the 40 agencies it serves in South-Central Los Angeles by shipping them groceries from the group’s other warehouse in East Los Angeles.

Sites said about 16,000 people get food through social service agencies from the East Los Angeles warehouse and 14,000 from the facility at 8764 S. Broadway.

LIFE, which was founded in 1983 by performers Valerie Harper and Dennis Weaver, charges the social service agencies 10 cents per pound of food to cover its costs, Sites said.

The theft was discovered Monday morning, Sites said. He reported the thieves also took office equipment valued at more than $5,000.

Canned Goods

Los Angeles Police Sgt. Richard Martinez said he was told by an officer who talked to a LIFE staffer that the only foodstuffs taken were about 25 turkeys and 40 or 50 small boxes of canned goods and rice.

However, Sites said that report to police was made by a clerical worker new to the facility.

Weaver, who was at a news conference to announce that LIFE would distribute food collected from Operation Santa Claus, first disclosed the theft.

“Whenever you have a situation where there’s a lot of joy and a lot of pleasure, you also get some pain--it seems to be the way of the world,” Weaver said. “We feel terribly distressed about it, but at the same time, we feel it’s a good opportunity to sit down and cry for help because this whole thing is devastating to us.”