Food Justice & Mutual Aid with Melissa Acedera

Wars movies. YEA. Our guest today is Melissa sidera founder and director of Polo's Pantry, a mutual aid food distribution project in Los Angeles, California. A. Melissa, thank you for coming on and talking to us. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm pleasure to be here. I apologize for the introduction, but I honestly it's better. It was better than I usually do, so if you can back

that up. Okay. So I'm an l A native, and um, I've been doing community organizing for probably like close to a decade, doing a lot of community work for a long time, and a few years before the pandemic. Actually, I started to organize with a lot of grassroots organizations in l A, working with a lot of houseless folks UM all over l A, and kind of clock pretty early that a lot, you know, a lot of a lot of groups were burning through their budgets spending it

on food. And so since I worked in kind of the food industry, I started to kind of poke around and figure out that we could get a lot of these things donated to us UM and pretty much started building a roster like building, kind of like a rulodex of UM other organizations, non profits, UM, food banks that we could rely on. So almost kind of created sort of like an Alphian system UM for these groups who

are working with houseless folks to get food every week. UM. I just wanted to figure out a way to make a steady and reliable system so that our own house neighbors would get food and that organizers across l A wouldn't have to worry about it. And so that's pretty much how POLO started. Officially started in two thousand eighteen. I was organizing with a group called Katon for All and UH. They do a lot of political advocacy and mostly rooted in like, um, kind of you know, human

rights for our houses, neighbors. If you don't know Katon

for all, look them up. They're awesome, follow them fantastic Adan. Yeah, And you know, I actually was because I was already doing a lot of mutual aid work in skid Row around that time and really kind of felt at some point, um that you know, like, yes, it was great that I was going out there with teams getting hot meals out and hot beverages whatever people needed to people, but I just was so down on what the conditions, seeing all the conditions that they were living in, and I

just wanted to meet other activists and other folks um who could really figure out how you connect people to services and and just really you know, anyone working in policy. That's so that's really changing things for people out there. And so I wanted to take sort of my advocacy and like my work a step further and connected with activists all the rail day. So that's sort of like my organs really rooted a lot of activism and organizing.

So I see I see a lot of I'm not sort of your standard kind of or nonprofit I really see things in the lens and as a community organizer, and so that's why our our work pretty much exploded during COVID. I'm kind of interested for for starters because you're you're you know, this is um a mutual aid project as opposed to kind of a charity project, and what do you what do you see as being the

dividing line there? Well, for you know, for a lot of for us, you know, it's very easy for for folks to kind of see the work that we do as part of the kind of charitable food system because obviously we're you know, UM mutual aid. It's the difference really is that obviously, UM, you know, there there's a there's a reciprocity between the two of you, UM, between between neighborhoods, between individuals, between organizations of sharing resources with

each other. UM and charitable obviously is a it's only one way, right, there's only like one person giving. But for us, UM, the way we picked our partners, I mean, we're we are ready part of this nucleus of kind of a coalition of or doing this work. So it was just ready very easy for us to kind of

share resources with each other. So I was doing food and some folks were doing hygiene kits, other folks were doing tents, other folks were doing tarps or whatever, and so there was so much you know, kind of mutualid and activity going on. And so that that's why we're we're really kind of rooted in that UM and that thinking as far as as opposed to charitable ors that basically just set up somewhere and give, you know, give

give stuff out to people. And so we have look a part and part of my advisory circle are a lot of houseless neighbors UM houses leaders in our community. UM. I also take a lot of advice from UM Indigenous organizers UM black community leaders in different neighborhoods that we work in. So our work is really informed by the community. And so we basically asked folks, hey, you know, like what can we do UM and plug into to work that UM that already exists in those in those areas.

I hope, I hope that means sense. But that's kind of how I feel about what we do. And and as an as an organizer, because I think we get a lot of questions from people who are interested in starting mutual aid projects in their own areas, and one of the questions we often have it is like well how do I how do I do that? Right? UM?

And Yeah, I'm interested in like like if you could kind of walk us through the steps when when Polo's pantry got started, Like what is what was the kind of order of operations that you had to go through

to get this this up and running. I think the first thing to do is really too For me, it was already kind of being part of grassroots UM or so I was part of a few of them UM and so it's really important to UM to kind of identify the needs of a community first before setting up your organ So I feel like I already had an idea of you know, of of what certain orcs needed, UM which areas, how many and so kind of identifying the needs first kind of UM number one and and

and to do that you really have to connect with grassroots organizations, local ones in your area. So you know, I recommend really just kind of doing researchers. Always folks doing that kind of stuff all over. If you're into political advocacy, there's folks that do that. There are folks who are more food justice oriented, Like I would recommend going to a local food bank or soup kitchens to have also, Like I've been doing that for years and I've met a lot of people with kind of similar

values mine. UM. So just kind of pretty much identif fin one, what you'd like to do, what you're good at UM, and then essentially research UM, you know, kind of opportunities to tap into a local organ doing that

work and then essentially start organizing with them. Right. I don't I don't recommend to build like to build an order prior to not having this kind of knowledge, because I feel like it's really crucial to sort of kind of map out first what the community needs instead of you building mutual aid organization based on you know whatever, because I feel like it's it's important to work through things from the ground up. UM. That way, you feel like the work is impactful. That way, the community is

leading and informing your work. And so that's that's kind of like how I I approached the line. So look for a local organ so kind of sit and organizing for a little bit and then him there once he once you guys identify what it is UM and start to kind of have an idea of of the demand or the need in that area, then start to reach out to say for me, for for food. A lot of local, um, local chains will weill we'll pretty much if you if you tell them what you're doing, um,

a lot of them will support you. So I actually have. I started with just going literally to my local Ralphs and telling the manager. They're like, hey, this is what I'm doing. I'm starting this or you know, wasn't Ralph's being a local grocery store in Likes Angeles area. A lot of I didn't know what Ralph's was before I moved to l A. So I just wanted to be like, she's not just like rolling over to where buddy Ralph's house, like, yes,

you got some food? Yeah? Sorry, yeah, so that Ralph's out here in l A. So most places, yeah yeah yeah I will. More folks said, not everyone is down for that kind of stuff, but somehow you'll you'll really end up on one that's really you know, that is really unkind. I think most folks have to realize that this this this kind of work is not it didn't happen overnight like building like building uh, you know, like a reliable network of people to donate to you is.

It takes time. So but I think if if you hit kind of larger chains, you will get UM, you know, you'll you'll you'll get you'll start to get a steady supply from them. Do you have any kind of advice for um, when you're actually approaching you know, manager at a Ralphs or something, somebody who works for Like, what do you have like I don't know, like a script, but kind of a rough guy to like, Here's how

I try to start these conversations. Here's some ways I try to phrase for things, because that could be useful for folks. You know, I actually have like a form letters I could share later maybe you can, right, yeah, great, UM that you know that they can use to um, you know, if they're if they're going to UM solicit

folks with that stuff. And I think a lot of mutual aid organizations to have that kind of UM kind of literature, that kind of form so UM, I think just basically kind of letting them know who you are, who you're serving, UM, how often which demographic is going

to that's usually really important. UM. What what helped me though, was I was as I started to get more serious about about doing the food work, I connected to you know, some some community partners and I actually UM turned Polos into a fiscally sponsored org so we moved from being just fully grassroots to being fiscally sponsored. That basically means we're operating under the five O one C three number of another organization of a larger organization. So that that

was that open so so many opportunities for us. It really allowed us to be able to access larger amounts of food and really help out a lot of a lot of a lot of smaller organs that needed to get their food programs off the ground. And so UM that is something I recommend if you're if people are serious about it, to define a community of community partner who who isn't established five and one C three that they trust UM to see if they if they know if they can sign on to to be a physical

sponsor UM. That I think is one of the quickest ways to be able to UM to really kind of establish yourself as as far as getting larger amounts of food then and by that I mean getting pallets of food, not just cases, but literally pallets of food delivered to wherever you are. As soon as we did that, that

completely changed the game UM. And and I think I did that because I knew I had so many friends who were doing mutual aid that needed so, you know, just so much stuff from from groceries to um, you know, fresh produce, and it wasn't and it wasn't you know, it didn't stop in food. We were getting you know, hand sanitizer, we were getting tense, we were getting all

sorts of stuff, you know, and so um. So yeah, that's what I recommend for folks were serious about food is to really again start to build a relationship with local businesses, um that they that they like food businesses

and really telling people this is what I'm doing. If you're if you know, if you're if you're you know, if you are, what support us, you know, like this is um, you know, these are these are the days that we need food or whatever, or these are the times that we'll need food and just let them know that you know, you're you're happy to pick it up or that you're happy to because there's there's I think, at least for California, we're starting to change law like

policy and law behind food waste, and so I think, um, something's going to change. In the January of two where a lot of food waste basically going to decrease because it's going to be much more difficult. The city is going to make it much more difficult for for businesses to just get your stuff. UM. They're they're really pushing

them to UM to separate them. But anyway, regardless, you're helping the business really UM move, you know, move food waste, and and most of them and a lot of employees too that I've talked to UM just you know, just our heart work. And every time they have to clear out you know, a full full tray or just trays and trays of of of of a perfectly fine food.

So yeah, there's there's a video going viral on Twitter right now of of like someone working at Dunking Donuts and just like dumping display hundreds and hundreds of donuts into the garbage. And then that happens. That happens every single day. You know. I have I have friends who used to work on Whole Foods and they would tell me just just how heartbreaking it was, just the amount,

just the massive amount of that's being wasted. Yeah, it's evil, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's a thing that in the more difficult days ahead, as you know, things like well like we under in a lot of areas, like the crop was half of what it normally is this year. That's going to continue. One day we will look at videos of Duncan Donuts dropping an entire day's worth of donuts into the trash and use it as a pretext to bring executives to trial. And it's going

to be like like like a war crime. Yeah is I mean, I mean, honestly though, as someone in food um um, you know, like the food system is changing massively in so many ways. I feel like the one kind of good thing that happened in the pandemic is that lawmakers were able to identify that the way snap or or um cal fresh pretty much food stamps were not enough really to um, you know, to feed families

and feed people. It's not nearly enough, though, but at least it kind of pushes the needles where we need where we needed to go um. And I think I think, having having been so focused and so like in the center of mutual aid work in l A, I'm able to kind of broadly tell you know, tell um really tell lawmakers too that hey, you know, there's so much um, there's so much meat out there, but the community themselves have built alternate food systems to be able to care

for themselves. I feel like my hope really is to be able to have to kind of hyperlocalize our food systems that way. Neighborhoods and really like communities are are essentially dictating their own you know, their own needs. They're they're basically bringing in the resources that they want. They're bringing in the kind of food that they want, you know, and um, and really just working towards the real kind of food food sovereignty where people are able to to

get the resources themselves. And and for me, I feel like mutual aid scares a lot of people because again it really is the sort of like, um, the reason why we were able to a lot of communities were able to to survive COVID. You know, we're still doing it and it's still ours so deep in it. And and even like I try to tell students to and like, you know, um, mutual aid isn't just food or whatever. It's also like say your dad is a pickup truck and your neighbor needs to move, I don't know their

dining room table across town. Like that is a form of mutual aid UM or Like there's there's so many things that especially a lot of immigrant communities that I that I work with. This this form of care, community care, you know, has existed forever, and it's just somehow elevated itself during the pandemic because, as we know, the safety

net just wasn't enough. It didn't it didn't it really didn't help me, you know, it didn't really help a lot of communities, and so this system essentially kept people afloat. And now we're trying to figure out how to really create better ways to sustain it and to really create better ways to get the resources directly to communities that

need them. So that's kind of where I'm at. I'm working with other folks trying to figure out how to how to keep the sustainable and really have more agency over what kind of food and what kind of ad you WoT. How have people that have been needing to access mutualating the food, how have they been learning about your organization? UM I think honestly, all this stuff really

happened by word of mouth. I think because I was I was already part of this huge coalition UM that's part of of the Sophie Knows a Cat for All. There's a group called street Watch. There's a group called crowd Game, There's a group called like There's there's all these different folks that basically are in our wide coalition. I haven't had to really advertise much like people just sort of like just kept telling others like, hey, you know, like Melissa and Polos and her team were doing this

and um. Also as a COVID response, I created another um um uh like COVID initiative called Homemade Meals and and that is the partnership with another organization called Yikes. And so as of today, I think we're close to seventy meals UM. That's all community lead. Yes, so we so we this smart of UM. We essentially created a system where we uh we work with people who are who are cooking homade meals in their homes and connecting them to drivers. And so we have about six different

UM organ partners. So one of them is obviously it's the same people Kaytown, street Watch, Covenant House. They work a lot with Homeless Youth um L a can or in skid Row UM and a bunch of other mutual aid groups in different areas of l A, so I

recognize UM. At the beginning of COVID, a lot of my houseless neighbors were telling us that they were scared, like because a lot of a lot of businesses were closing, a lot of corner stores, restaurants, UM that the the food access completely shut off for them during at the beginning, and I started to freak out. I was like, how we're going to get food to people? And so UM some friends who run UM basically they weren't kind of like a youth kind of youth focus or UM wanted

to activate their you know, activate their community. They're like, hey, how can we help? What can we do? So we created this program basically that you know, figure out like, okay, well a lot of people want to have volunteer, but they can't leave home, So why don't they cooked meals at home? And then we'll just pair them with drivers who can pick it up safely. And so we just

started doing that. We created this system too, and and I think we honestly, I thought we were just gonna do it for two months, but now we're what like, in nineteen months later, seventy five thousand nails over a thousand volunteers, like it's been wild. Actually, Jane Expert, she would be angry if we didn't state that. So Jamie, UM, Jamie actually is UM. It's one of our o G like like cooks, Like she started with home and made meals from the very beginning. UM, she's kind of one

of our That's kind of how we know her. UM. It's because she found she found that program UM. And it's been a while, it's been it's been so amazing to to really activate so many people across l A to cook for our houses neighbors. And so I haven't even fully digested our team hasn't even fully digested that the real impact of that. But it's been seting five thousand meals UM made by the community for our for

our houses neighbors. So so so that's yeah, so that I don't know, like I feel like and I truly believe there's just so much just so much power and the people and really trying to figure out ways to continue to you know, to create UM better systems where where we can redirect those resources you know, UM to us and UM you know like really kind kind of break down these systems where you know, because because even people were telling me, like folks who are like, you know,

these sort of big institutions, food institutions have been around for decades or even folks UM from like yeah, from like running food dogs since the eighties were like, you know, how are you able to move so fast? I'm like,

that's mutual aid. That's like, that's mutual aid. Then our ability to not have to run through so much bureaucratic crap and red tape is a reason why we were able to, you know, to to to create such huge impact because people believed in what we did and you know and helped support us, funded us UM and we essentially just you know, just hit the ground running. We're able to figure out what people needed on the ground

and just just got it to them. That's what That's it, you know, and we'll figure out if if we don't have it, we're gonna keep you know, we'll ask around for folks who have it. Like UM. There's a group called SILA there. It's silver like UM and my friend Kat who's one of the co founders. She they also worked with with UM with Houseless Folks and they do uh incredible work, like you know, providing showers providing hot meals,

providing UM referant services for folks. UM. She she was great, I getting hygiene kits and so that's that was started me to wil between each other. Like she needed hot meals, so I gave that to her on Saturdays, and then I needed like hygiene kits, and so that's kind of like the basis, yeah, exactly, like I literally will give her two hundred meals, She'll give me two hundred hydging kids.

And that was like that throughout the pandemic, Like we just would share resources and people thought we were this huge org, but essentially it was just you know, literally like we're friends and I talking to each other like hey, what do you have today? What do they have coming in today? And we just essentially kind of built this sort of cloud like sort of inventory. Right, so it's like Polos has a thousand meals and like Seela's got five hundred Hygian kids, and like you know, street Watch

as like fifty tents and like a hundred tarps. So it's like we all were like, hey, you know, there's there's a houseless man on the corner of like Sunset or whatever that needs like blah blah, blah, and so we essentially just you know, just grab and go like Poles has meals and like street Watch has tents, like Kate Towns got like the tarps. So y'all just again beautifully just sort of started to like build this sort of sort of out like inventory of stuff and it

just worked and it's still working. So um and it's consistent, Like is what what we're bringing up or at the beginning is talking about how consistent you're able to you're able to have done this work, which is if you're an l A resident, you know that you know the city's support is never consistent, so having that consistency is so vital. Yes, yeah, I'm not thank you. And it's it's a lot of hard work, just so much that people don't see. Obviously, there's so many, so many things

that people don't see. There's a lot of organizing behind it, just literally a lot of community building, a lot of meetings. Yeah, I think that again, like the bulk of mutual aid is relationships and trust, you know, like that that's that's really it. That's how you breathe life into your system. And it's like, you know, you have to have you have to continue to like nourish relationships, you know, between yourself and other organizers, between yourself if you're running an

order between yourself and another organ UM. And and really that's how we've been able to, you know, to to reach so many people, is because we focused on making sure but you know, UM, it's so easy to to burn out in this work. But again, we also have to make sure that we take care of each other, UM.

And we focused on making sure that we're checking on each other two and so I you know, it's it's hard to fully explain what how to even teach that you know, how to how to how to properly relationships, but I feel like that's that's such a key part of creating a really robust mutual aid network. UM. And that's at least the experience that we had youse. Yeah, were the work that you've done and what you've been able to accomplish is very impressive and is something that

people a lot of people can aspire to. UM. Is there any like resources online that you can point to if someone's wanting to get into this type of work, UM, or any any like any kind of like advice to get started in your own city or to like look for stuff that's doing this similar that that's like that's doing a similar thing. Um uh wow, let's see who has um gosh, that's a really really really good question. Um. Well, well, first I hope that people have read Mutual Aid by

Dean Spade. Um. Sure, that's a really good book. Um. And and from there I would read I would read The Black Panthers Social Programs. I got a lot of I got a lot of my um my inspiration from there. Um. And really that's that's really those those two things to kind of start as just sort of like your um, your primers um. And then if you want to kind of get deeper into food Justice, um uh, they're's a really good book. Are you get ready? Years ago it's

almost I think it's literally called food Justice one on one. Okay, let me see it's really called it rely call food Justice one on one. Yeah, there's there's quite a few, but but one that's one, and then there's another there's a one book um I read called More Than Just Food um. And then it's it's pretty by Yeah. I'll give you guys my top five and that really canna helps sort of um like shape my thinking. You're on

food justice. So that's it's written by a guy named Garrett Broad and he essentially like kind of lays out sort of how the industrial food system kind of created this huge crisis that we're in, and you know, like how there's there's really kind of an abundance of food everywhere, but obviously it's gettributed, yes exactly, and so and and and also kind of lays out how food justice you know activists UM who are in mostly low income communities

of color help really build community based kind of solutions to these problems. And so that's really kind of where my thinking and my my lens comes from is because I am a child of l A, I'm able to understand what different neighborhoods need UM based on because I either grew up there, work there, have family there, you know, what's school there, or just have friends or other organizers who live there. And so say, if you know, I, I didn't grow up in Ball Heights, but I have

friends who did. And so like, if I'm trying to build out a food program or mutual aid program and Ball Heights, I'm not going to just walk in there and be like, all right, we're gonna do it at you know, Yeah, you're not gonna take over there there

they're saying exactly. But I think that's one thing I think I really want to for people to really especially for for for young people who want to get to food justice, Like you really have to really honestly do your research first and let the media leaders lead, um lead lead your program with you, right. And And there's a difference between like making community connections and then trying to like take over, right, there's a very very two

very different things exactly. Yeah, you don't want to be extractive, right, you don't want to be extractive. You don't want to be coming in and you know, and and and really like you know, try to like show up with like, you know, solutions where there they weren't informed at all by the community. And I keep trying to stress that, Yeah, is there anywhere that people can support you or at least follow you online to keep up with the work. Yes, Um,

I'm very active on Twitter. Um it's uh, we're at Polos pantry, so that's p O l O, s UM p A and p R why. And then I'm also tweeting as myself as an organiser. It's under m E smelling music as M E L L E music. UM, and that actually that handled for me everywhere, just like my personal so I I tweet from there a lot. I tweet a lot about food justice work I feel and all our all our work in l A I tweet, I retweet a lot of our MOVEM network and coalition work. Yeah.

Just thank you for coming on to the show to talk about though justice and the work you've been doing. Um, it's great to hear more examples of people from around the country than hopefully you know, around the world getting involved in in this type of work. UM. Anyway, I think that it wraps up us today. You can follow this show on Twitter and Instagram at Happened Here pod and cool Zone Media. UM, subscribe to the feed, leave a hive star review or whatever. Anyway, that's that's that's

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