Food Finders Inc

Our “Mission”: To eliminate hunger and food waste while improving nutrition in food insecure communities.
Core Values:
Community
We share a common goal among our collaborative partners to help feed people in need.
Integrity
We adhere to a strict moral and ethical standard in staying true to our mission.
Responsibility
We strive to be an example of how to promote social and environmental equity.
Adaptability
We continue listening, learning, and growing as needs change and opportunities arise.

In April of 1989, Arlene Mercer, founder of Food Finders, witnessed a banquet manager throwing out perfectly good food in an alley trash bin while blocks away a homeless person scavenged for food in a similar dumpster. Her frustration in wanting to help while also being aware of the incredible amount of waste that must be prevalent sparked the idea that brought Food Finders into existence. She began by contacting food vendors and restaurants nearby to inquire about donating food overages, and then partnered with local agencies and missions to redistribute the donated food. Food Finders received its nonprofit status in 1990. This marked the beginning of Food Finders' Food Rescue Program to feed the hungry. Food Finders now works with the Los Angeles Produce Mart as well as 450+ other food vendors, providing millions of pounds of fresh produce and perishable food items to more than 400 nonprofit agencies. Food Finders coordinates approximately 250 weekly food delivery routes with the help of 3 staff drivers and 150 regular volunteers. Most agencies receive food daily, some weekly and a few less often, depending on the agency’s size and needs as the food is available. Our volunteers cover routes seven days a week, and our staff drivers transport food 5 days a week. The uniqueness of Food Finders’ program is that we do not warehouse our food -- we pickup and deliver on the same day to ensure the freshest, most nutritional value.
 

Food Finders celebrated 33 years of rescuing food and reducing hunger in April 2022. In that time, we’ve been able to provide more than 198 million meals worth of food to those in need. Each year we engage new nonprofit partners and continue to add new food donor partners. We currently have more than 500 vendors that donate to us, and we serve more than 400 nonprofit agencies—pantries, shelters, missions, youth programs, seniors and more, throughout Southern California. As new legislation in January 2022 went into effect, SB 1383 Organic Waste Reduction Act (a bill that sets goals to reduce disposal of organic waste in landfills, including edible food), we anticipate adding hundreds of new food donors into our program.

Our greatest need is always to collect more food--perishable and nonperishable. We constantly are seeking new donors and whether it's an ongoing partnership or one-time donation, it all makes a difference.
We also need to increase our individual giving, since we cannot rely solely on grants from private and corporate foundations for income. Our operations run very lean, but we need to support those expenses such as rent, fuel, salaries and supplies in order to keep things running successfully.
Part of our goal is to add additional program staff to keep up with the new food donors we will add over the next few years as more businesses comply with SB 1383 and reduce their organic waste disposal by donating their food overages to feed people and not landfills with perfectly good food. As we add new food donors, we also add new recipient agencies to connect the donated food with food insecure people. Food Finders is the bridge between those two worlds, making the connections and managing the logistics.
Volunteers are always needed, as our volunteer-base shifts when people retire, become ill or travel. We encourage new volunteers to apply online and meet with us to discuss how they'd like to be involved, whether it be as a food delivery person, event helper or office support. See our website, www.foodfinders.org(http://www.foodfinders.org)

Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino counties

Food Finders is unique in terms of food banks, as we don't warehouse our food. Our job as 'middleman' is to take donated food and make sure it gets out as soon and as fresh as possible to our partner nonprofits who serve and distribute the food. The logistics in planning for deliveries and pick ups can be very detailed, but we make sure we work around the schedules of those serving meals and doing distributions so they are not having to store food for long periods either. We have been able to reach hundreds of recipients through a large volunteer network and our staff drivers. All the food stays in the community or nearby where it was donated from, so that donors can feel they are supporting local needs and volunteers don't have to drive a long way, plus the food is delivered fresher and more efficiently. In 2020, we launched a food rescue app and this all transformed our program by transferring all donation information into one centralized system for immediate tracking and reporting.
 
What started in 1989 as a home-based nonprofit has been able to prosper into an 16-person staff and 150+ volunteer base operation. On any given day we are able to collect enough for about 40,000 meals. We rely on community, both businesses and individuals, to be ambassadors to food rescue and to remind everyone that even your next door neighbor could be going hungry, so every leftover sandwich, every can of food, every orange in your backyard, can make a difference in reducing hunger.

Food Finders’ board of directors are a combination of full-time employed and volunteer members, each having diverse skills and backgrounds. They consistently bring additional community support to our events, including fundraisers, food drives and fairs, and several board members act as spokespeople at events on Food Finders’ behalf as well. Their fundraising tactics have been primarily in sharing about Food Finders to coworkers, friends and family who in turn have become regular donors and volunteers at events. One board member has engaged not only his children but also grandchildren as volunteers, who now attend fundraisers as well. Several own businesses or work for companies that sponsor Food Finders events, helping sustain our revenue throughout the year and allowing us to grow our donor base.
We strive to engage a diverse set of volunteers from various communities, age ranges, backgrounds and ethnic origins. We do this exceptionally well, and are continually keeping diversity top of mind when recruiting new board members, too. Diversity is important in forging personal relationships, since each population and community relates to people of who share their own cultures and backgrounds, which then influences how they give or get involved.