Yet Another Newsletter About Free Food

But this time, I'm not the one eating it. Plus recs for Anne Helen Peterson on the Breakfast Club, Chris Fleming on Boomer tech, and the demise of murder hornets.

Every Wednesday, I volunteer at a food pantry in my neighborhood here in LA. When I started volunteering there about three years ago, a typical week would see us serving about 50-60 families.

Nowadays, we regularly serve 170+ families every week, with no signs of slowing down. It's hard to pinpoint any one cause for the rise in need, but the lingering effects of the pandemic, the rollback of government benefits, and the rising cost of food have all played a part.

It’s a story you don’t often see on the front page of a newspaper or going viral on social media, but food pantries all across the United States have seen similarly dramatic rises in demand. Before I worked here, I thought I knew what kind of person came to a food pantry. But it’s a much broader swath of the city than I would have expected. It’s unhoused folks and the unemployed and disabled. It’s also moms who work two jobs and have three kids and two elderly grandparents living with them. It’s young people working minimum wage and paying too much in rent. It’s Russian refugees. Increasingly, it could be any person you cross paths with during your day.

The need is overwhelming but the reason I keep going back to the food pantry isn’t really because of some do-gooder impulse. I keep going back because I have a great time when I’m there. The other volunteers are just as varied as the clients we serve. Just counting the regular volunteers, we’ve got an Italian nonna who speaks barely any English but brings in homemade gnocchi. We’ve got a hilarious group of Hawaiians who are constantly laughing and making fun of me. We’ve got a former addict who used to live on the streets and get food from the program and now works harder than anyone else giving it out. The food pantry operates of a space at a local church, but we’re staffed by an equal amount of atheists as devout Christians, a Tatar Muslim refugee, a half-Jewish comedian, an actor/real estate agent, and a guy with purple hair who’s been going to Burning Man for 20 years. Sometimes we have high schoolers completing community service requirements and often we have a dog named Gherkin. It’s a beautifully strange and wonderful group of people.

I love my Wednesdays there because it makes me feel hopeful about the world and the future. That’s not something I feel very often on the other days of the week. But when I come to the food pantry, there’s no space and no time to worry about what will happen in the future. We’re too busy sorting produce, moving boxes, packing bags, and loading food into people’s car trunks. It’s all about taking tangible action to help our neighbors make it through another week. For me at least, there’s no better antidote to anxiety than doing something physical and helping someone else.

Anyone who reads this newsletter knows a lot about my passion for free food. I wrote about it last week even! And here and here and probably more other times too. But, as the year comes to a close, I’d like to ask you to help me help other people experience the glory of food you don’t have to pay for.

The food pantry gives out high quality, nutritious, fresh food. Our rule is we don’t give anything out that we wouldn’t eat ourselves. This is not your average food pantry fare! We're proud to be able to give out bags that regularly feature farm fresh vegetables, loaves of Bub & Grandma's bread, dry goods and frozen proteins from the regional food bank, and groceries from Trader Joe’s. When we have the resources, we also do our best to make things personal too, by stocking diapers and toys for the families with kids that come by or providing cat food for a client who often can’t afford it.

The bags from this week packed up and ready for distribution

The food pantry is 100% volunteer run and operated. We have spent years finding reliable sources for food and now have connections with everyone from the big national food bank networks to local grocery stores, farmers, and bakeries. We keep things very lean. So lean, in fact, that we don’t even have a fancy fundraising thermometer thingy that would show you how much we’ve raised and how much we need to raise to keep things running in 2025.

I will tell you though, that we estimate $7,500 would cover our expenses for all of next year. If we raised even more, that would give us some wiggle room in case a freezer breaks or a grocery store can’t donate one week and we need to supplement to have enough food. It would also let us do more special stuff like giving out diapers or a special treat around the holidays (this year we gave out red and green tamales, which people were thrilled by). Every dollar goes directly to either food that is given out or the cost of preserving and distributing that food (e.g. buying bags to give out, paying for refrigerator repairs, etc.).

You can give directly through the website here, which would make your donation tax-deductible. Or, if it’s easier and you don’t care about the tax deductible stuff, you can venmo me at [@]ciduffy and I’ll make sure it gets to the right place. If you want to give money in some other way, respond to this email and I’m sure we can figure it out. If you do give (in either way), please also let me know the amount so I can keep track of how much we’ve raised. Once again, our operation is so low-tech that our entire fundraising team is… me. Historically, not a recipe for fundraising success!

Regardless of the money part, if you’re based in LA (or even just visiting), you are more than welcome to come hang out and help out one Wednesday. We’re back in business starting January 8th, and people volunteer anytime from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. I am almost always there from 11 a.m. to 2 or 3 p.m.

Ok, thank you for reading and for considering a donation! Sorry this wasn’t as funny haha as usual! I’ll make lots of jokes in 2025, I promise.

My projects and upcoming events:

LIVE IN SF: Wrong Answers Only at SF Sketchfest - Sunday, January 26th at 7:00 p.m. at the Gateway Theater. If you live in the Bay Area, come see me, Samm Levine, Aparna Nancherla, and Dulcé Sloan learn from a wildlife biologist about all the animals that are roaming through your city/ Tickets are onsale now

LIVE RADIO: All of It (WNYC) - I’m joining host Alison Stewart for an end of the year wrap-up segment and taking listener calls this Monday at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time. I love this show and I think Alison is brilliant so I’m very excited. Listen (or be brave and call in!)

PODCAST: How to Be a Better Human (TED/PRX) - Anita Rao is our final guest of the 2024 season and we’re talking all about bodies. From being embarrassed by your voice to whether or not your parents ever gave you “the talk,” this was a fun and surprising note to end the season on. Listen to the conversation here (or wherever you get podcasts). We’ll be back with Season 5 in mid-January!

TED TALK: How to find laughter anywhere - My TED talk is online and on YouTube. Please watch and share! You can find it here

This week’s list

GREAT:

I’m a proud member of the Los Angeles Breakfast Club, a delightfully odd association that’s been around for a century, consistently meeting once a week to eat breakfast and sing about how much they love eggs. Anne Helen Peterson had a very fun interview in her newsletter this week about building community with the secretary of the LABC. How to be a joiner

FUNNY:

I cannot stop thinking about this brilliant Chris Fleming bit about how Baby Boomers use Bitmoji in a way that’s lightyears beyond any other generation. It’s so funny and bizarre and yet entirely related. I think Chris Fleming is a comedy genius and this joke had me rolling. Bitmoji

INTERESTING:

It’s rare to read an environmental success story these days, but you can’t argue with this headline: ‘Murder Hornet’ Has Been Eradicated From the U.S., Officials Say “The hornet was discovered in a corner of Washington State. Five years later, a massive mobilization has eliminated the invasive species, at least for now.” Ok, I guess the fact that they included the line “at least for now” is ominous. There’s no denying that’s an ominous sentence ender! But the news is good! I’ll take it.

BONUS FOR PAYING SUBSCRIBERS:

Paying subscribers make Bright Spots possible! Subscribers get access to special features as well as all posts in the archive. I am donating the proceeds from this year’s paid subscriptions to the food pantry, so you also get to feel good about yourself and your decisions. Not only that, but paying subscribers also get my undying gratitude (which never dies). It’s never too late to join them!

That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please share Bright Spots with anyone you think might enjoy it.

Thanks for reading and for considering donating to the food pantry! Here’s that donation link again.

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

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…wait, who are you?

I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I’m currently writing a nonfiction book about humor for Doubleday.