About Our Community Dinner

Join Us For A Meal

Our Community Dinner Is Served Every Night, 365 Days a Year, Rain or Shine, Without Fail.

Hollywood Food Coalition’s Community Dinner is our signature and longest-running program. We serve nightly to anyone in need of a hot, nutritious meal. Our consistency builds trust with our guests, which helps us connect them with further services.

Here’s why it works.

Every single day, community volunteers join us to turn compassion into action. They help us prepare casseroles, salads, and soups, and then serve these warm, delicious meals to our guests. Our volunteers are integral to the success of our nightly Community Dinner, and their continued support has sustained our work and our mission since 1987.

We Make Delicious Meals with Rescued Food
Welcoming Our Guests & Serving Meals
Where We Serve Dinner on Weekdays & on Weekends
Our Community Dinner during COVID

We Make Delicious Meals with Rescued Food

We transform thousands of pounds of high-quality, rescued food into beautiful and tasty meals.

Here’s how we do it.

We often don’t know what we will be making until we see what food arrives that day. Once we know what we have, the creative, food-making adventure begins.

We roast and prepare tasty meat, vegetarian, and vegan casseroles. We spice up pastas, rice, and lentils. We make leafy green salads. Whatever fruit we have that day becomes a colorful fruit salad. The bread is sliced for making sandwiches, and we always include individually-wrapped desserts from some of the best bakeries in town.

Welcoming Our Guests & Serving Meals

From 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm every night, we welcome guests to join us for dinner, without knowing in advance how many people will come. We have never turned anyone away. There has always been enough food for anyone who needs it.

Our volunteers help to make each of our guests feel welcome, comfortable, and cared for. We greet everyone who shows up, taking the time to learn their names. If no one has spoken kindly to any of our guests that day, we will. We see that as our job.

Many nights, volunteers distribute items that are critical to surviving while living outside, such as clothing, sleeping bags, blankets, lanterns, and hygiene kits.

During our Community Dinner, we provide referrals to other social services, answer questions about how to navigate accessing care, and share information about our other programs.

Where We Serve Dinner on Weekdays & on Weekends

Monday through Friday: We serve dinner on The Salvation Army Hollywood Campus at 5939 Hollywood Blvd. from 6:30-8:00 pm

Saturday and Sunday: We serve dinner at the corner of Orange and Romaine (1 block south of Santa Monica Blvd and 2 blocks east of La Brea Ave.) from 6:30-7:40 pm

Our Community Dinner during and post-COVID

Current Protocols for Guests:

Meals are offered to-go, rather than as a sit-down dinner.
Hand sanitizer is offered to each guest if they inquire.

Current Protocols for Volunteers:

If any volunteer feels unwell, they are asked to please stay home until they are feeling better. If a volunteer knows they’ve contracted Covid, they need to notify us immediately so we may inform other volunteers who were in the Kitchen at the same time.
All volunteers are required, if they have long hair, to pull it up or push it back under a hat and wear closed-toed shoes. If any protective gear is asked for, we will provide that (mask, gloves, aprons).
All volunteers are required to wash their hands before they begin their chores. At the weekend site, hand sanitizer will be available.

Links:

Click here to learn about our Community Exchange Program.

Click here to learn about our Community Wellness Program.

Click here to learn about joining our Volunteer Partners.