CONCORD, Calif. — On Saturday, on the streets of Washington, Donald Trump will throw himself a expensive and ostentatious navy parade, a gaudy show of waste and vainglory staged solely to inflate the president’s dirigible-sized ego.
The estimated price ticket: As a lot as $45 million.
That very same day, the volunteers and workers of White Pony Categorical will do what they’ve executed for almost a dozen years, taking completely good meals that may in any other case be tossed out and utilizing it to feed hungry and needy individuals residing in probably the most comfy and prosperous areas of California.
Since its founding, White Pony has processed and handed alongside greater than 26 million kilos of meals — the equal of about 22 million meals — due to such Bay Space benefactors as Entire Meals, Starbucks and Dealer Joe’s. That’s 13,000 tons of meals that may have in any other case gone to landfills, rotting and emitting 31,000 tons of CO2 emissions into our overheated environment.
It’s such a righteous factor, you may virtually hear the angels sing.
“Our mission is to attach abundance and want,” mentioned Eve Birge, White Pony’s chief government officer, who mentioned the nonprofit’s tenet is the notion “we’re one human household and when considered one of us strikes up, all of us transfer up.”
That mission has grow to be tougher of late because the Trump administration takes a scythe to the nation’s social security web.
White Pony receives most of its assist from companies, foundations, neighborhood organizations and particular person donors. However a large chunk comes from the federal authorities; the nonprofit may lose as much as a 3rd of its $3-million annual price range attributable to cuts by the Trump administration.
“We serve 130,000 individuals annually,” Birge mentioned. “That places in jeopardy one-third of the individuals we’re serving, as a result of if I don’t discover one other method to increase that cash, then we’ll need to reduce packages. I’ll have to contemplate letting go workers.” (White Pony has 17 staff and about 1,200 energetic volunteers.)
“We’re a seven-day-a-week operation, as a result of persons are hungry seven days every week,” Birge mentioned. “We’ve talked about having to tug again to 5 – 6 days.”
She had no touch upon Trump’s large, braggadocious celebration of self, a Soviet-style show of navy {hardware} — tanks, horses, mules, parachute jumpers, hundreds of marching troops — celebrating the Military’s 250th anniversary and, oh sure, the president’s 79th birthday.
Marivel Mendoza wasn’t so reticent.
“All the packages which are being gutted and we’re utilizing taxpayer {dollars} to pay for a parade?” she requested after a White Pony supply truck pulled up with a number of pallets of fruit, veggies and different groceries.
Mendoza’s group, which operates from a small workplace heart in Brentwood, serves greater than 500 migrant farmworkers and their households within the far japanese reaches of the Bay Space. “We’re going to see individuals ravenous in some unspecified time in the future,” Mendoza mentioned. “It’s unethical and immoral. I don’t know the way [Trump] sleeps at night time.”
Actually not lightheaded, or along with his empty stomach growling from starvation.
All of the meals processed at White Pony Categorical, together with these bell peppers, is checked for high quality and freshness earlier than distribution.
(Mark Z. Barabak / Los Angeles Instances)
Those that work at White Pony communicate of it with a religious reverence.
Paula Keeler, 74, took a break from her current shift inspecting produce to debate the group’s beneficence. (Each little bit of meals that comes via the door is checked for high quality and freshness earlier than being trucked from White Pony’s Harmony warehouse and headquarters to considered one of greater than 100 neighborhood nonprofits.)
Keeler retired a few decade in the past from a number-crunching job with a Bay Space college district. She’s volunteered at White Pony for the final 9 years, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
“It’s grow to be my church, my fitness center and my therapist,” she mentioned, as pulsing rhythm and blues performed from a conveyable speaker inside the massive sorting room. “Tuesdays, I ship to 2 senior properties. They’re principally little ladies they usually can go to mattress at night time realizing their fridge is full tomorrow, and that’s what touches my coronary heart.”
Keeler hadn’t heard about Trump’s parade. “I don’t watch the information as a result of it makes me need to throw up,” she mentioned. Informed of the spectacle and its price, she responded with equanimity.
“It’s type of just like the Serenity Prayer,” Keeler mentioned. “What are you able to do and what can’t you do? I attempt to keep on with what I can do.”
It’s not a lot in vogue today to cite Joe Biden, however the former president used to say one thing price recollecting. “Don’t inform me what you worth,” he typically acknowledged. “Present me your price range, and I’ll let you know what you worth.”
Trump’s priorities — I, me, mine — are the identical as they’ve ever been. However there’s one thing notably stomach-turning about squandering tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} on a conceit parade whereas slashing funds that might assist feed these in want.
Michael Bagby has been volunteering at White Pony for 3 years, delivering meals and coaching others to drive the nonprofit’s fleet of vehicles.
(Mark Z. Barabak / Los Angeles Instances)
Michael Bagby, 66, works half time at White Pony. He retired after a profession piloting large rigs and began making deliveries and coaching White Pony drivers about three years in the past. His ardour is fishing — Bagby desires of reeling in a deep-sea marlin — however no interest can nourish his soul as a lot as serving to others.
He was conscious of Trump’s pretentious pageant and its heedless price ticket.
“Nothing I say goes to make a distinction whether or not the parade goes on or not,” Bagby mentioned, settling into the cab of a 26-foot refrigerated field truck. “However it could be higher to indicate an curiosity within the true wants of the nation relatively than a parade.”
His route that day referred to as for stops at a center college and a church in working-class Antioch, then Mendoza’s nonprofit in neighboring Brentwood.
As Bagby pulled as much as the church, the pastor and several other volunteers had been ready outdoors. The modest white stucco constructing was fringed with useless grass. Site visitors from close by Freeway 4 produced an insistent, thrumming soundtrack.
“There are lots of people in want. Lots,” mentioned Tania Hernandez, 45, who runs the church’s meals pantry. Eighty % of the meals it supplies comes from White Pony, serving to feed round 100 households every week. “If it wasn’t for them,” Hernandez mentioned, “we wouldn’t have the ability to do it.”
With assist, Bagby dropped off a number of pallets. He raised the tailgate, battened down the latches and headed for the cab. A church member walked up and caught out his hand. “God bless you,” he mentioned.
Then it was off to the following cease.
