Father Ed Benioff says he’s a bit of an “activist,” so he became pretty restless when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and people were experiencing extreme food insecurity. He felt compelled to act. Somehow. Any way he could.

“I wasn’t going to sit around and read books and go on retreat,” he said. “I said we’ve got to do something.”

For Benioff, pastor at Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, that “something” at first meant organizing volunteers to make and distribute sandwiches to the needy once a day. Then a few times a week. Eventually, they expanded to make 600 sandwiches a day, seven days a week.

That simple effort has now grown into Feed My Poor, a nonprofit organization started by Benioff in 2021. Taking the Gospel of Matthew 25 (“For I was hungry and you gave me food”) and Mother Teresa as inspiration, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit uses employees, cooks, and volunteers to provide home-cooked meals to the hungry in areas such as Skid Row, Mid-Wilshire, and Venice Beach.

“Feed My Poor is a humanitarian nonprofit,” Benioff said. “This is a humanitarian crisis. It’s not necessarily a religious crisis.”

After a year of sandwiches, Father Ed thought: How can we expand our outreach to where the needs are and maybe try some hot meals?

The first decision was to lease a food truck, where they’ve used the mobile kitchen to transport hot meals to places with higher numbers of homeless.

The second was to turn the Feed My Poor effort into a nonprofit organization so they could hire employees and solicit donations from individuals and businesses outside of Good Shepherd Church.

“Because it’s a business, we have employees, and we pay them,” Benioff said. “And when you have employees, you can demand a certain level of excellence and a standard.

“A lot of work goes in and all the credit goes to our very dedicated employees.”

One of those employees is Marisol Ortiz, who knows firsthand what it’s like to be homeless.

A single mother, when she was 24 weeks pregnant with her fourth child, she slipped and fell where she was living in Sylmar, forcing her to stop working as a tamale street vendor. When she couldn’t make ends meet, Ortiz didn’t know how she was going to put a roof over the head of her and her four kids.

“I never knew about shelters in California,” she said. “So the only way I did it is God put me in a place where you’re going to only be following him.”

She eventually found a haven at the San Fernando Rescue Mission shortly after she gave birth, where she stayed for a few months to get back on her feet.

During the pandemic, she was again desperate. With selling tamales once again disrupted, she needed another lifeline. On a Wednesday night, Ortiz prayed, asking God for help, to give her a job — no, a mission — where her talents could be utilized.

The next morning, Marisol’s sister-in-law, Araceli Orta, called and said a priest was looking for someone to cook for the homeless.

That was Father Ed.

“He’s been a gift to my life. He’s been my supporter,” said Ortiz, a parishioner at St. Didacus Church in Sylmar. “He’s been chosen by God to be doing what he’s doing right now. I couldn’t have asked for anything else.”

Now Ortiz works with her sister-in-law and her sister, Cruz Adriana Ortiz, to prep, cook and deliver hot meals seven days a week. Each morning, they make 300 meals — or more, if they can stretch it, Ortiz said — depending on the supplies that have been purchased and food that has been donated.

The dishes they come up with are mouth-watering: Burritos, teriyaki chicken, pasta, chili beans, chicken soup.

The truck travels to MacArthur Park three times a week, and then two days each at Gladys Park in downtown Los Aneles and Towne and 5th Street near Skid Row. Sandwiches are still given to beach communities such as Venice and Santa Monica, plus communities like Westwood, Hollywood or “wherever the need is,” Benioff said.

From Angelus News