During November, the Brentwood Community Council (BCC) took a big role in an annual Thanksgiving food drive on the Westside that helped the SOVA Food Bank – a nonsectarian program of Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles
David Gershwin of JFS/SOVA, the entity primarily in charge of the food drive, elaborated on some of the statistics that followed the recent donation-based event, which culminated with a “Grand Weigh In” on Nov. 23 at the LAPD’s West L.A. station.
“Over the course of the food drive that JFS/SOVA conducted with the assistance of LAPD’s West Division, we received 5,609 pounds of food from 75 different participating locations where donations were collected,” Gershwin said.
Both the BCC and JFS/SOVA expressed their appreciative sentiments toward the LAPD.
Gershwin explained the progress that JFS/SOVA has made with LAPD’s West L.A. Division in combating hunger in the community.
“JFS/SOVA is proud to partner with LAPD’s West Division to help families in need during the holiday season,” Gershwin said. “Providing both food and a full range of supportive services is key to our mission, and since 2007, we have gone from serving 4,000 families per year to more than 12,000 families each year today.”
In the spirit of the season, the BCC outreach committee, headed by Michelle Bisnoff, helped facilitate collections in the community by scoping out the most strategic locations for the collection bins as well as picking up the food donations on the day of the food drive.
Becoming involved with this particular cause was initially rooted from the values of Brentwood residents.
“This is the first year that BCC has proactively sought locations for the food drive bins within Brentwood,” Bisnoff has said. “We received feedback from a community survey about what issues are important to our residents, and fighting hunger is one of them.”
After all of the food donations were collected, dropped off, and weighed, thousands of families were served over the Thanksgiving weekend.
Similarly, Bisnoff and the rest of BCC were glad to give back to both the community and the police department as well.
“As a community council, we are deeply grateful for the excellent leadership of West LAPD Captain Evangelyne Nathan and our lead officers Maria Gray and Chris Ragsdale,” Bisnoff said. “We have a BCC member on our local Community Police Advisory Board, in addition to providing volunteer hours and community outreach for their policing efforts and strategic assistance for their fundraising goals.”
The harmonious partnership between the three organizations was certainly helpful in achieving yet another successful outcome.
For more information, call 818.988.7682 or visit jfsla.org/sova.
