{"id":655199,"date":"2026-03-14T14:05:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T14:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/655199\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T14:05:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T14:05:14","slug":"this-east-la-food-pantry-needed-a-new-home-the-boyle-heights-community-stepped-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/655199\/","title":{"rendered":"This East LA food pantry needed a new home. The Boyle Heights community stepped up"},"content":{"rendered":"

The story<\/a> first appeared on Boyle Heights Beat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A free community food pantry that had been set up outside a market in East Los Angeles now has a new home in Boyle Heights, thanks to community members who rallied to keep it going.<\/p>\n

Created by East L.A. native Rebecca Gonzales, the pantry had been stationed outside of Ramirez Meat Market on the corner of Folsom Street and Rowan Avenue since November, offering produce, snacks and shelf-stable items.<\/p>\n

Gonzales created the resource after seeing how ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and SNAP delays were affecting the most vulnerable in her community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n

If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n

A few days after Boyle Heights Beat published an article about the pantry<\/a>, the market\u2019s owner asked Gonzales to move it. <\/p>\n

Rosa Ramirez, who has owned Ramirez Meat Market for 26 years, said she hadn\u2019t expected the pantry to be permanent and noticed that fewer people were coming into her store when the pantry was stocked.\u00a0Ramirez appreciated Gonzales\u2019 intentions, but said the piles of donated clothes and shoes next to the pantry were difficult to manage.<\/p>\n

Soon after learning the pantry would have to move, Gonzales posted the news on Instagram. Within an hour, she received about a dozen messages from friends and community members reaching out to help.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was worried that I was gonna have to just bring it home and it\u2019s gonna be a lapse of services,\u201d Gonzales said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That same day, Yvonne I. Monje Perez, owner of SuperNova Thrift \u2014 a shop near Mariachi Plaza that sells second-hand clothing \u2014 reached out. Though she had never met Gonzales, Perez didn\u2019t think twice about offering help.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The East LA free food pantry now sits outside of SuperNova Thrift on 1st Street in Boyle Heights.<\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Laura Anaya-Morga<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

Boyle Heights Beat<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could benefit from something like that here in this neighborhood,\u201d Perez recalled thinking after seeing the post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With coordination from Gonzales and guidance from the Boyle Heights Chamber of Commerce, Perez and her husband picked up the pantry last Friday and it was open for the community the following day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me so happy seeing people come to it and look at it, and just take from it,\u201d said Perez. \u201cIt\u2019s been received very well, a lot of people are very happy about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Perez and Gonzales have a schedule for opening and closing the pantry, and donations have continued to roll in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Gonzales does not keep track of how many donations come in every day, she noticed items usually remain at the end of the day, a change from when the pantry would go empty in East L.A.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Gonzales hopes to inspire others to start free food pantries in their own communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want to help,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople want to do good things. People want to see other people not just survive, but thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The East LA free food pantry was recently moved in front of SuperNova Thrift on 1st Street in Boyle Heights.<\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Laura Anaya-Morga<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

Boyle Heights Beat<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The story first appeared on Boyle Heights Beat. A free community food pantry that had been set up…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":655200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[8624,1582,276,277733,277734,53640,62601,161790,149919,2961,224,5337,1085],"class_list":["post-655199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-boyle-heights","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-community-pantry","tag-donated-food","tag-east-la","tag-east-los-angeles","tag-food-donations","tag-free-food","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-resources"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116227914208160494","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}