‘Friend-Raiser’ Offers a Hand to the Hungry

Brother, can you spare a dime?

That slim coin covers the costs of two meals for Orange County’s needy, according to John Busschaert, resource manager for the Food Distribution Center.

Surrounded by the opulence of Crystal Court, amid the smells of gourmet foods and the sounds of jazz and chatter, Busschaert’s arithmetic--20 meals for $1--seemed unbelievable.

“People are always surprised by the numbers,” said the young man who oversees the stockpiles of the county’s primary clearinghouse for surplus and salvaged food.

To judge by the turnout last Thursday at FDC’s fourth annual Food and Wine Fair, a lot of people are also pitching in.

More than 620 guests paid $25 each to attend the early-evening benefit, which featured a variety of foods donated by local restaurants, served with a full complement of wines, sodas and sparkling waters.

A “friend-raiser,” executive director Dan Harney called the party, which took place in a roped-off area on the second and third levels of the shopping mall.

“New friends are as important to us as new funds,” Harney said. “In the long term, the only solution to the hunger problem is public awareness.”

In the short term, FDC is converting food which would otherwise be thrown away into meals for an estimated 320,000 people in Orange County who are at risk of going to bed hungry at some time during the month.

The center’s sources of food are supermarkets, corporations and the national food distribution company, Second Harvest. Its beneficiaries are 218 local agencies serving the needy.

And while the number of FDC’s friends and supporters may be growing, its food supply has dwindled in recent months, due to the drought and a flurry of supermarket mergers.

“In the first half of the year, we were handling an average of 380,000 pounds of food per month,” Busschaert said. “In October, we handled 217,000 pounds.”

Seen among the crowd were California Angels pitchers Kirk McCaskill and Terry Clark. Event chairman Timothy Maurier estimated net proceeds at $16,000.