Michael Flood, photographed in the Los Angeles Times in El Segundo on September 8.
About a month after COVID-19 locked down most of the state in the spring of 2020, Debbie Deck, who runs a neighborhood food pantry, decided to stay open when so many had closed. But most of her volunteers had gone home and the pantry was quickly running out of food.
At the same time, the need in their pantry had more than quintupled: from 2,500 people a month to 14,000. Families from as far away as Ventura and southern Orange County traveled to West Valley Food Pantry in Woodland Hills.
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Desperate, she called Michael Flood, former director of the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. Flood himself was trying to feed more than twice as many people as before the pandemic.
“Michael, I'm in trouble. “I need help,” Deck told him.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, devoid of basic products, neighborhood grocery stores that normally donated to the pantry could no longer do so, he explained. Additionally, many of his volunteers were afraid to leave their homes.
“Wait,” Flood told him. “I will return to you.”
Shortly after that call, Deck started receiving calls from people who wanted to help. The Smart & Final Charitable Foundation pulled up with an 18-wheeler full of food. Amazon Fresh, which had to postpone its grand opening due to the pandemic, donated thousands of pounds of meat and produce. Workers from a nearby hospital volunteered to help Deck set up the drive-thru food distribution.
“We were able to stay open throughout COVID and it was really because of Michael's connections,” Deck said.
Flood, 61, who has run the food bank for more than 20 years, used his deep connections with private donors and local, state and national government officials to step up efforts to serve the growing number of people who needed food during the pandemic.
His relationships with Los Angeles County officials allowed the food bank to host large-scale food distributions at huge venues, like the Hollywood Bowl. And although the intense early days of the pandemic are behind us, Flood said demand for food remains high. Food inflation and the end of pandemic-era programs are just a few of the reasons so many people in the county need help.
Currently, Flood and his team, in coordination with a network of more than 600 partner agencies, including soup kitchens, homeless shelters and senior programs, feed about 900,000 people each month.
“The need is still there,” he said.
