Seeks to Feed 15,000 : Food Program to Open Panorama City Facility

Love Is Feeding Everyone, a food distribution program founded by actors Dennis Weaver and Valerie Harper, announced plans Wednesday to open its first San Fernando Valley center in Panorama City on Feb. 1.

The announcement came more than three years after LIFE first said it would add a Valley location to centers operating in Lincoln Heights and South-Central Los Angeles. Officials said it had taken longer than they expected to find a suitable and affordable location.

“We were looking to have a building donated. We were not too successful in that,” said Rita Tomassian-Hopkins, LIFE’s director of research and development. “We only recently found a building we could afford.”

The center will occupy a warehouse at 14630 Titus St.

Weaver and Harper founded LIFE in 1983 in an old East Los Angeles fire station.

44,000 Fed Weekly

The food recovery network relies on donations of imperfect and expired food from grocery stores, produce markets, bakeries, manufacturers and food drives. By its own tallies, LIFE feeds an estimated 44,000 people a week in Los Angeles.

At a news conference Wednesday morning featuring fancy hors d’oeuvres created by a Sunset Strip chef from donated food, Weaver said LIFE hopes to feed 15,000 Valley needy through the Panorama City center.

Like the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and food collection programs, LIFE gives food to distribution agencies, not directly to the poor. In the Valley, executive director Kitty Franklin said, LIFE will begin by working primarily through the Valley Interfaith Council, a network of churches, food pantries and charities.

‘Open to All Agencies’

“But clearly we are open to all social service agencies who are serious about giving food to the needy,” Franklin said.

To help the Valley center get started, LIFE received grants from two private foundations--$115,000 from the Milken Foundation and $50,000 from the Weingart Foundation. After the first year, operation costs will be carried by participating agencies--which pay 10 cents a pound for the food--and by cash donations.

Weaver said Hughes Markets agreed to donate about half of the food needed in the Valley and significant amounts to the other centers.

LIFE first announced plans to open a center in Pacoima by Thanksgiving, 1985.

Franklin attributed the ensuing delay to a dose of reality. “It’s just been kind of a process of growth and evolution,” she said.