During the day, Melissa Acedera works from her home in Burbank, putting in hours at her full-time job doing research and compliance work for food companies.
In between those long hours, she’s also coordinating hundreds of food drops throughout Los Angeles.
When night falls, she’s part of a dedicated network of volunteers at nonprofits, churches and shelters who are trying to keep Los Angeles’ homeless communities fed during the global coronavirus outbreak.
Along with every other facet of normal life, the pandemic has disrupted pathways to L.A.’s homeless. There’s more competition for food supplies in store aisles, diminishing a vital reservoir that food pantries and shelters have traditionally relied upon. City officials, meanwhile, have said protecting the residents of skid row — home to the largest concentration of homeless people in the country — is critical to slowing the spread and dampening the effects of the coronavirus for the city at large.
Read the full story on LATimes.com.