Reaping Food for the Needy

Dave Phillips’ business has a growth rate that any corporation would envy: a sevenfold increase in customers during its first five years.

But the success is bittersweet because Phillips’ trade is feeding the growing ranks of the hungry.

Unlike traditional food banks, which rely mostly on canned goods, Phillips has created the Children’s Hunger Fund to distribute the untapped surplus crops thrown away or left to rot in the fields and packinghouses of the Southwest.

Using an innovative method of rushing fresh goods directly to the needy through about 60 east San Fernando Valley churches, the Pacoima-based Hunger Fund doles out 100 tons of food a week, feeding 25,000 people. Three-fourths of the food is gleaned from the fields. In comparison, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, the country’s largest, distributes 75 tons a week, most of it canned.

“Produce is something that everyone looks upon as a great aspect [for feeding the hungry] up until you get into the logistics,” said Doris Bloch, executive director of the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.

Farmers “have more products than they can sell,” said Phillips, 35, a clean-cut man fond of button-down collars. “They are anxious to move out the day-old crops and make room for the new.”

Phillips runs his Christian-oriented charity out of a warehouse on about $300,000 in annual donations. He and four employees spend much of their time on the telephone talking to farmers and packinghouse foremen as far as New Mexico. They call seeking surplus potatoes, carrots, beans and other items that the companies will be forced to throw away in order to save on storage costs.

To pick up the food, five tractor-trailer trucks and their drivers are usually at the Hunger Fund’s disposal. Some are offered through Operation Blessing of Riverside, another nonprofit group, and others are donated by private haulers such as Tiger Lines.

About 15,000 of the weekly recipients live in the Valley, where the poverty rate has nearly doubled since 1980. About 10,000 more are fed at various Southern California food pantries, Native American reservations and international orphanages.

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In soliciting growers, Philips emphasizes the Hunger Fund’s ability to take surplus food off their hands in one shipment as well as its reputation for flexibility and a thorough follow-up.

The Hunger Fund offers to ship donated food overseas, in case a donor does not want domestic circulation of surplus products that may contain an embarrassing snafu, such as mislabeling. It even provides the companies with snapshots of the church giveaways, to be proudly displayed on newsletters.

Once the food is secured, it is stored at the Hunger Fund’s 10,700-square-foot warehouse, complete with three large industrial coolers.

But it doesn’t sit for long. Following a strict schedule, volunteers from the 60 churches use pickup trucks, vans or other vehicles to get the items. The Hunger Fund screens its churches for promptness; if they do not pick up the food at the designated time, Phillips may be stuck with his own surplus. Usually, the food is in the hands of the needy no more than three days after it is harvested, he said.

The Government Accounting Office, Congress’ investigative arm, estimated in the 1980s that as much as 20% of all food grown in the United States--up to 2 tons per person, per year--is thrown away.

Phillips worked for World Opportunities, an anti-hunger organization, after graduating from Westmont College, a small Christian school in Montecito. He left in 1991 to start his own operation.

During a period when donations to more traditional food banks and pantries have fallen 20%, Phillip’s operation has thrived.

Carolyn Olney, associate director for the Southern California Interfaith Hunger Coalition, which seeks to coordinate pantry efforts countywide, has found that ever-thinning profit margins are spurring companies to sell what they once gave to food banks.

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Many of the canned items can now be found on the shelves of secondary stores such as the Scratch ‘N Dent Food Shops in Plant City, Fla., or Dentco in Fontana.

To combat that loss, food banks have tried to get more food from the fields. But they have faced challenges.

Many of the smaller food banks do not have large enough refrigerators to keep the massive amounts of produce from going bad. Some recipients, used to picking up on a looser schedule, do not follow the routine needed to ensure that the items are delivered freshly.

The church volunteers, who usually schedule giveaways one day a week, say the hungry range from laid-off aerospace workers to those suffering from mental illness or drug abuse to the largest number: poor Latino immigrants.

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One of the immigrants, Adrian Magdalno, recently stood in line with 80 others at a distribution point, Arleta Foursquare Church. He wore jeans and a T-shirt still spotted with plaster from a day’s work in construction.

“I’m looking for a better job . . . but in the meantime this food helps me to buy many things I cannot afford,” he said.

The 34-year-old Sun Valley resident, who said he immigrated legally from Mexico, said his $150 weekly salary is not enough to provide for a family of three. He said with the recent welfare downsizing, he will no longer qualify for food stamps, stretching his budget further.

Many of the churches also supplement offerings from the Hunger Fund by asking their neighborhood supermarkets to donate slightly damaged goods.

At Arleta Foursquare the other day, recipients gave back an item or two from their eight-item packages to create a few extras for those who came late.

“These people are not greedy,” said Ramon Sierra, who volunteers with his wife, Mary. “They will share and not complain.”

Phillips emphasizes that his efforts should not be misconstrued as a replacement for a shrinking government safety net.

“We’re doing more and more to address the needs of the community, but the needs are far outpacing the effort,” he said.