Making a Difference in Your Community : Feed the Needy Program Turns Less Into More

When it comes to feeding the needy, the Encino Lodge of B’nai B’rith knows how to make $5 work like $50.

Since 1975, the Feed the Needy program has been procuring and distributing food, blankets, fabrics, cosmetics and just about anything else to either local aid organizations or directly to those in need.

Most of the products are donated to Feed the Needy. Some of them are soldat a fraction of their value.

Last year, Feed the Needy furnished more than 1.5 million pounds of food, soap and clothing valued at more than $750,000 to organizations like the San Fernando Child Guidance Center, Meet Each Need with Dignity, West Hollywood Homeless Inc. and Haven Hills for Battered Wives.

“When we started, we centered our efforts around the holidays,” said 72-year-old Herman Berman of Sherman Oaks, president of Feed the Needy. “As needs increased, our activities increased. With the recession, things have gotten to the point where we can’t keep enough food in stock.”

One of the more remarkable aspects of the Feed the Needy program is its ability to find food and other products that are gathering dust or about to reach their expiration dates and to get them into the hands of the low-income, homeless, aged or the infirm.

“Some of our members are retired food industry people,” Berman said. “They know just about everybody who is a distributor, processor, canner or jobber of food products.”

At zero or dramatically reduced cost, food and other products are turned over to the Feed the Needy program. Often it is delivered free; other times, Berman and some of the 75 other volunteers of the program pick it up.

“Periodically, we’ll get a call from someone in the industry saying they have extras,” Berman said. “Sometimes they donate it free or they’ll say for 15 or 20 cents on the dollar we can take the overage.” The products are then taken to a storage facility in Chatsworth, where the owner donates some of the space and rents the rest at a discounted rate.

Volunteers of all faiths are welcome, Berman said.

“Anyone who considers himself a brother of the covenant (the English translation of B’nai B’rith), which means living by the golden rule, is welcome to join us,” Berman said.

Berman says volunteers are needed to help procure supplies. Help is also sought loading and unloading trucks or raising funds.

“The biggest thing is soliciting merchandise,” Berman said. “We pressed one guy for a month and today we got our first shipment from him.”

One manufacturer donated a shipment of mislabeled women’s cosmetics. Berman and company used the products to make gift packages for the holidays. A manufacturer of lace cloth donates remnants, and Berman’s group puts them in the hands of volunteers who make bonnets and hats for kids with cancer who have lost their hair from chemotherapy.

For its efforts, Feed the Needy recently won a $5,000 Los Angeles Times Community Partnership Award.

“That money will probably pay for anywhere between $25,000 and $30,000 worth of food products,” Berman said.

Even at the May luncheon honoring Feed the Needy and 10 other Times awardees, Berman was at work.

While talking to Verna Porter of the Sepulveda United Methodist Church, whose Breakfast Program for the Homeless also won an award, Berman mentioned that he had gotten a shipment of 27,000 pounds of matzo in the aftermath of Passover.

“The next day, they came and filled up two cars with matzos,” he said.

Recently, Berman met with USC provost Dr. Jerome Walker.

“He said the First AME church in South-Central could use some help (with its outreach efforts),” Berman said. “I told him, ‘If we have it and they need it, it’s theirs.’ ”

For more information on the Feed the Needy program, call Berman at (818) 788-4230) or (213) 872-1491).

Getting Involved is a weekly listing of volunteering opportunities. Please address prospective listings to Getting Involved, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, 91311. Or fax them to (818 ) 772-3338).