Outside Ramirez Meat Market in East Los Angeles, the wooden shelves of a small, green structure are stacked with fruit, snacks and cans of tuna. Signs in English and Spanish have a simple message for passersby: Take what you need, leave what you can.
The free pantry on the corner of Folsom Street and Rowan Avenue is stocked by Rebecca Gonzales, who set up the resource last year after seeing how ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and SNAP delays were affecting the most vulnerable in her community. About once a week, she loads a tote bag of groceries into her cart and lugs them to the market to load up the pantry’s shelves.
Her work is part of a mutual aid network called Los Angeles Community Fridges, which operates and maintains community-run pantries and fridges across the city. The program exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing free food and supplies for neighbors in need while also helping eager community members set up their own.
“Somebody donated for a Costco run, so I just brought the staples that I usually bring,” Gonzales said as she pulled a bag of clementines from her tote on Thursday.
She placed the fruit in a hanging metal basket and carefully arranged the rest of the produce and groceries: yogurt snacks and shelf-stable milks cartons as well as a couple garlic bulbs, a yellow onion and a sleeve of crackers from her own pantry. In pots of varying sizes, Gonzales put out chile de arbol and tomato sprouts and tomatillo plants that she grew herself.
Like the plants in her garden, Gonzales’ roots in her community run deep. A sixth-generation East LA native, Gonzales has vivid memories of going to food banks with her mom as a child and receiving boxes of canned goods, powdered milk and peanut butter. She craved fresh fruit and vegetables, she recalled.
Still, however, her family relied on those resources. “Without that, I couldn’t be here today,” Gonzales said. “It really saves lives.”
So last October, when she read about how ongoing ICE raids were causing immigrant families to stay home out of fear, then how SNAP delays were affecting food-insecure families nationwide, Gonzales wanted to bring the resources to her neighbors’ front yards.
“It really upset me and enraged me that … the lack of food and resources were being used against communities of color and minority communities, so I wanted to do something to feel, for myself, less hopeless,” Gonzales said.
For a few weeks in November, Gonzales set up several shelves near El Pino, the giant, iconic pine tree in Boyle Heights. Neighbors were shy about taking items at first, she said, and some were shocked to find out that Gonzales was not operating on behalf of an organization.
In an effort to give the pantry a more permanent, stable location, Gonzales recruited the help of a friend to build the wooden structure based off of blueprints that she purchased on Etsy.
Then, she asked the owner of Ramirez Meat Market for permission to set up outside of her store in East LA. She enthusiastically agreed, Gonzales said, so now when Gonzales receives donations to restock the pantry, she tries to spend half on fresh produce from the market in addition to the bulk items she gets at Costco.
In February, Gonzales connected with Los Angeles Community Fridges to integrate the pantry into their city-wide network.
These days, Gonzales stocks the shelves with a variety of items by paying for things out of pocket, looking through her own pantry for extras or through donations from friends, coworkers and volunteers within the Los Angeles Community Fridges network.
Gonzales hopes that the pantry will one day be self-sustaining and that more of her surrounding community will pitch in or purchase items from Ramirez Meat Market to keep it from going empty. She sees the full shelves as a symbol of her community pouring into itself.
“Everything that we do, it doesn’t matter how small it is,” Gonzales said, “is helpful and it is important, and it’s impactful.”