Lola’s relief efforts have led it to become one of Long Beach’s leaders in delivering warm meals countywide. The Long Beach staple that has been serving the community for over 15 years is not only one of the essential cogs for the Bixby Knolls community relief effort, where local advocates, led by Blair Cohn and Shawn Moore, have effectively turns Bixby Knolls into a command center. Additionally, Lola’s owners Luis Navarro and Brenda Rivera have taken their team across the county as a sanctioned operator for the World Central Kitchen.
“We’ve been at it pretty much nonstop since last Thursday,” Luis said. “And we just got called up to be behind the lines in Alta Dena come tomorrow [Tuesday, Jan. 13]. “Some comes out of our pocket. Sometimes it’s at the directive of Blair and Shawn at Bixby Knolls. Sometimes it’s under the order of the World Central Kitchen. We show up where we can and where we’re asked to be.””
Hundreds of meals each day has reached evacuees and first responders thanks to Lola’s involvement in relief efforts.
Lola’s relief efforts have been nonstop since last week: Thursday? 200 meals directly from the team at Lola’s, handed out to fire and police officers at the Rose Bowl. Friday? 400 meals on behalf of World Central Kitchen, famed chef José Andrés’ nonprofit, focuses on ensuring locals in disaster areas continue the ability to work and, therefore, feed the people that need it. (More on that below.) In between? Picking up a hundred sandwiches from Thunderbolt Pizza. Or a few hundred meals from Tony’s Kitchen. And running them up to L.A. as determined by the makeshift command center.
And the ability for Lola’s to do just this isn’t solely because of the power of big nonprofits or the collective efforts of Bixby Knolls. It is also in small things, like the kind offering of Michael Newfeld from Gaslamp…