Letter From Our Executive Director

When the COVID-19 Pandemic hit our communities in March 2020, nobody had any idea of how profoundly it would impact our families would be.

From March 2020 through the end of 2021, Labor Community Services had hosted 167 community food distributions, helping over 165,000 families directly who had been facing food insecurities. It is a daunting number, especially when we reflected on how quickly we had to come together as an organization, rally our community partners and organize food distributions throughout Southern California. We’re thankful to our partners at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO and the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank in working closely with us to reach that goal. To date, Labor Community Services has distributed over $2 million in food in our communities.

As we continued to battle this Pandemic, we began to see hope as vaccines were being developed and finally approved, giving us a vital resource in the fight against COVID-19. Through our collaboration with St. John’s Well Child and Family Center, we were able to to provide the vaccinations to over 20,000 Angelenos, mostly front line essential workers, seniors and communities of color. These efforts have made a huge impact in slowing down the spread of the virus amongst the vaccinated and we are blessed to have been able to help provide our neighbors with protection they rightfully deserve.

As we began to wrap the year, LCS brought together our volunteers, sponsors and our community partners, to thank and celebrate their invaluable contributions to our work in 2021. Our inaugural signature event was launched in the middle of the Pandemic to recognize and honor exceptional work of community and organizational leaders. We named it in honor of labor leader and trailblazer Dolores Huerta, calling it The Dolores Huerta Spirit Awards. This year, we honored Michael Flood, CEO of the Los Angeles Regional Food bank and Jim Mangia, CEO of the St John’s Family and Wellness Center for their exceptional work during this pandemic. We recognized and awarded our brother Mike Garcia, who we miss daily, with a posthumous award recognizing his lifetime of commitment and dedication to the labor movement.

We look ahead at 2022 knowing that we must continue to stand with our brothers and sisters in our communities who will need our help to get through the rough times. That is what Labor Community Services is all about.

Armando Olivas Executive Director Labor Community Services