Giveaways Brighten Thanksgiving for Needy Families

Both places had lines of hungry people and boxes of Thanksgiving turkeys.

At first, that’s about all that the two food giveaways occurring a few miles apart in Los Angeles on Saturday seemed to have in common.

One was glitter and power figures, with 600 well-organized volunteers filing holiday bags as television cameras focused in.

The other was gritty and anonymous, with 15 employees of a tiny electronics company hurriedly handing out food from the back of a donated grocery truck.

But both brought thanks from impoverished residents of South Los Angeles.

“I’d be eating beans and peas without this,” said 65-year-old disabled truck driver Eddie Cole.

Cole was at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church on Harvard Boulevard, where entertainer Arsenio Hall and supermarket board Chairman Ron Burkle were teaming up to donate the ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner to 3,200 families.

“It would be beans and corn bread for us,” said Mira Morris, a 40-year-old mother of four.

Morris was at the St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church on Compton Avenue, where employees of Viking Components Inc. were distributing turkeys and dinner ingredients to 880 families.

“Gosh, some of these people have been here since 4 o’clock yesterday,” Hall said as he gazed at those lined up outside First AME Church. “That’s a message.”

Burkle, president of the chain that owns Boys Markets, Viva, Alpha Beta and Food 4 Less, said the idea for Saturday’s food distribution came after Hall met him six months ago in the wake of the riots.

From a church balcony, the pair spoke briefly to those waiting in line. Hall praised Burkle’s company for staying in the inner city, even after its stores suffered major losses in the rioting.

“If somebody burned down my store, I’ll tell you, I’d go out to Sherman Oaks and never come back again,” the talk show host said.

The Rev. Cecil Murray, pastor of the 8,600-member First AME Church, said Hall and Burkle were not only helping feed the hungry, but “Arsenio immediately gives visibility” to the problem of poverty in Los Angeles.

There were no speeches down on Compton Avenue, where Viking Components workers were hurriedly filling food bags from the truck of grocery company driver Bob Svoboda.

Svoboda of Corona volunteered to deliver the food when workers at Viking Components arranged to buy $15,000 worth of turkey and other Thanksgiving trimmings at cost from his employer, Albertson’s supermarkets.

Viking company owner Glenn McCusker said his 55 employees gave $3,000 and the company donated the rest. The Laguna Hills firm produces computer memory modules.

“We’ve been real successful this year. We wanted to give back to the community,” said McCusker, 30.

The giveaway was organized in one week, said Jeffry Johnson, a Newport Beach financial consultant and childhood friend of McCusker who helped run Saturday’s distribution.

The Rev. Lovely Haynes, pastor of St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church, said he went door to door in the neighborhood to invite needy families to pick up food. His 250-member congregation normally is able to give Thanksgiving baskets to about 20 poor families, he said.

“This is unbelievable,” Haynes said. “It’s an answer to our prayers.”