By JADE TAKAHASHI
Contributing Reporter
What happens to the leftover food from fabulous Hollywood parties after the lights are off and the stars have gone home?
Angel Harvest’s refrigerated truck picks up a good deal of the perishable leftovers and delivers them that night to shelters and soup kitchens to feed the city’s hungry.
Nicknamed “The Robin Hood of Gourmet Food,” the non-profit collects leftovers from participating groups 24 hours a day, every day. The selection ranges from leftover Chateaubriand and prosciutto from Hollywood soirees to traditional cafeteria fare from UCLA’s dining halls. Twelve workers pick up and distribute food to regional shelters that provide more than 4,000 meals a day. The organization calculates the cost of each meal at 26 cents, which is funded by donations from sponsors, including such companies as Walt Disney Co. and Whole Foods Market.
Now that it’s awards season, things really swing into action. Angel Harvest will work the Grammy party, which is for 6,000 guests. Another event coming up is the American Country Music Awards.
“We will go into ACM’s temporary kitchen to pack up and load this leftover perishable food with five staff people,” said Helen verDuin Palit, president and founder of Angel Harvest. “Many of the guests at these events work really hard to maintain their zero-size bodies. Therefore many eat just the appetizers and the salads, completely skipping the main course and desserts. It’s more good food for people in need.”
The idea for Angel Harvest came to Palit while she was running a soup kitchen for Yale University in 1981. She noticed a neighboring restaurant disposed of pounds of potatoes after their skins were used in recipes. The next year, she founded City Harvest in New York City, the beginning of a national and international network of food pickup and delivery. She brought the idea to Los Angeles in 1995.
“The average party in New York City has 500 people,” Palit said. “The average party in Los Angeles is 1,000 to 2,000 people. We’ve picked up from parties with 20,000 people that’s the population of some cities.
“We’re delivering the food based on simple criteria: geography. If there’s a premiere in Pasadena, we deliver that food in Pasadena. If we’re picking up at a party that ends at midnight, we’re taking that food to a shelter by 1 a.m.”
More than 3,900 companies give food on a regular basis.
Palit collaborates with Mary Micucci, founder of catering company Along Came Mary Productions, in bringing the entertainment and catering world to the needy.
“As a business owner and entrepreneur, I’ve always thought it was my moral responsibility to give back to a community that has given to me,” Micucci said.
Angel Harvest serves 51 of the 800 social agencies that provide food to the hungry in Los Angeles.
“We have a schedule throughout the day of picking up and dropping off,” Palit said. “We have other companies calling in for requests, so we’re kind of like a UPS or FedEx. Only in green and white instead of brown.”
