Want a good argument in favor of ignoring the adage “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas?”
Consider the charitable service, Delivering Food With Dignity. The operation started earlier this year in Sin City to help residents slipping through social service cracks created by the coronavirus pandemic. And, recently, the effort has inspired a similar program in Orange County, backed by a partnership that includes private donors, nonprofits, local restaurants and a volunteer delivery team.
The county connection got started about a month ago, when Daniel Kim, co-founder of the Tustin-based Dragon Kim Foundation, was on a fundraising-related visit to Las Vegas. While there, he heard about a free meal program that Nevada’s Moonridge Foundation launched in March as a response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Then, and now, a lot of people in Las Vegas were in need of food assistance. And then, and now, the city’s restaurant industry was being devastated.
Moonridge Foundation used donated funds to pay local restaurants to make meals for hungry people — a process that helped two needy groups. Soon, the program expanded to Reno.
Now, it’s in Orange County. Over the past three weeks Kim has led an effort to marshal the financial resources — more than $200,000 so far — and manpower needed to deliver thousands of free prepared meals a week to people in need.
The first of those meals were dispatched on Wednesday, June 24. Toast Kitchen & Bakery in Costa Mesa put together 150 bags packed with meals that included grilled teriyaki chicken and herb and butter rice, spaghetti bolognese, and a mixed greens salad. Toast was one of seven restaurants that had signed up to prepare the meals. More are being recruited.
“It’s not just delivering food,” Kim told a small crowd of mask-wearing supporters and media who gathered on launch day outside Toast. “It’s delivering a message that we all care.”
Daniel and Grace Kim have been reaching out to help others since 2015, two months after their son Dragon Kim, 14, and his friend, Justin Lee, 15, were killed when a tree branch fell on them as they slept during a Yosemite camping trip.
Through the charity they founded in their son’s honor, the Dragon Kim Foundation, the Kims helped raised money to bankroll the Delivering Food with Dignity program. Donations have come from a variety of givers, including the Sun Family Foundation, Sisters of St. Joseph Health Care Foundation, Anaheim Community Foundation, Wells Fargo, OC Community Resilience, St. Jude Medical Center, and Mission Hospital.
The recipients include homebound individuals and families who, for various reasons, are not being served by other food programs. Over the past two months, their need for food has produced a five-fold jump in calls to 2-1-1 Orange County, the county’s one-stop referral agency for social services resources.
“There are individuals and families who were just getting by but might not have qualified for public service programs pre-COVID-19 due to program barriers,” said Karen Williams, president and chief executive officer of 2-1-1 Orange County.
“When COVID-19 hit, people who have not qualified for programs suddenly were in need, and don’t know where to turn.”
Williams said 2-1-1 is contacting local nonprofits to identify people who might be helped by Delivering Food with Dignity. These people, she says, are facing a “triple threat,” meaning they are at high-risk to COVID-19, aren’t getting prepared meals from other programs, and are financially unable to meet their food needs without leaving their homes. They don’t have a reliable support system to assist them.
The program is expected to provide 25,000 meals over the next six weeks. If donations allow it, and if the need remains, the program could run longer.
Toast owner John Park, who has catered meals for homeless people and given them work in his restaurant, learned of the program about two weeks ago. He signed up right away, he said, to help out the community and his restaurant staff. Restaurants that make the food are paid $6 a meal. Park said the extra money will allow him to add another furloughed worker to his staff of 23.
“If there’s a bonus of being able to bring back more of our staff to work, it’s a win-win,” Park said.
Delivering Food with Dignity also relies on volunteers, organized by OneOC and the Dragon Kim Foundation, to fan out around the county in their own vehicles and drop off the food.
On Wednesday, college student Jackie Lee of Tustin, heading into her senior year at USC’s film school, loaded up her black Jeep Patriot with enough meals for 12 clients. Her route took her from Costa Mesa to Garden Grove and Anaheim. At her second stop, in Garden Grove, Lee chatted briefly with Giao Nguyen. Nguyen has a 15-year-old son with autism and a daughter who just graduated high school.
Grocery shopping in the age of Covid, Nguyen said, has been difficult. She heard about Delivering Food with Dignity from her son’s case manager at the Regional Center of Orange County, a nonprofit that serves people with developmental disabilities.
“Thank you so much,” Nguyen told Lee. “Thank you so much for your time and for your driving.”
As she headed back to her Jeep, Lee responded in kind: “I wish the best of luck to you and your family.”
Before she drove off, Lee said she was glad for the chance to meet Nguyen and learn a little bit about the family’s circumstances.
“It makes it a lot more real.”
Find out more
To learn about qualifying for meals, call 2-1-1, visit 211OC.org or text your zip code to 898211.
Prospective volunteers can go to the Food Hero page on OneOC’s website. Prospective restaurants can contact Bronnie Lee at bsglee@gmail.com.
To donate to the program, visit moonridgefoundation.org/donate-now.
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These pandemic-driven food deliveries in Orange County come with a side order of dignity - OCRegister
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