LOS ANGELES — Every week Jackie Norvell prepares Sunday dinner, but it's not for herself.
It’s for the homeless in Hollywood.
“We pride ourselves on doing everything from scratch,” Norvell said.
It all started over seven years ago after a night of basketball at Staples Center, she said.
“I was in a car and it went east instead of west, leaving a Laker game actually, and we happened upon skid row,” Norvell recalled. “To see the poverty - ooh, it bothered me. I went back to my office and I asked everybody if they could help me and donate money.”
The money was to help buy food to feed the homeless in downtown Los Angeles and beyond.
Meals are often packed in brown bags. So, she became known as the brown bag lady.
Norvell has a team of volunteers of all different backgrounds preparing, packing, and getting ready to deliver meals, along with clothing to those in need.
She even has her own brown bag lady van.
The brown bag lady’s work has reached celebrities like Chaka Khan, who has also helped with the cause.
“It wasn’t just like ‘My people will call your people,” Norvell said. “Chaka Khan was in the trenches with us and still now today. I got a text from her last week asking me ‘Hi, darling. What do you need?'”
Whenever she arrives to hand out food, she begins a large whistle and the shout of “Brown Bag Lady.”
Lines form and people are fed. Bonds are also being formed with people who may be otherwise forgotten.
“Miss Jackie is the only thing I had to look forward to every Sunday,” one man said.