Far too many homeless people go to sleep without enough to eat every night in Los Angeles. However, in Encino one woman is taking hundreds of those people four times a week and serving them four course meals.
While a group of volunteers in the kitchen plate the main course of homemade meat loaf with a side of polenta and steamed carrots, another group is serving salads to a room full of homeless guest.
What makes New Friends Homeless Center different is the “restaurant” style of serving homeless people, led by Pastor April Belt.
"Most people that are experiencing homelessness on the street don't have the money to go into a restaurant or you know, they feel uncomfortable being in a restaurant so we're able to give them that,” said Pastor Belt.
Pulling this off takes a lot of work and a lot of manpower. Sitting in her office on the phone, she received a call from a volunteer group who would eventually come in that weekend.
She says it all starts with the volunteers and once she has the right amount of people, she can move on to scheduling them into one of the four nights a week she holds servings.
Her passion for helping those who are less fortunate stems from a trip to India that she took with a friend. She said that after she visited a homeless man on Thanksgiving that this idea was born.
“I went home and it was just breaking my heart and I kind of looked up on the computer to see what services were being offered in Woodland Hills. This will be eight years in March, and there wasn't nothing.
After taking a few more calls, she goes out to get supplies. A mix of plates, plastic utensils, and paper towels.
Pastor Belt is hoping that one day she'll be able to own a shelter and operate it seven days a week, but that's not a small undertaking.
Her nonprofit, it brings in a little over $400,000 a year through a combination of monetary and in kind donation such as refrigerators or ovens.
This is also her full-time job, so she does take a 15 percent salary plus a home allowance, but everything else that goes back into the organization.
It means the world to people like Penny Bodlermock, who less than a year ago was being served as one of the pastor's “new friends,” and is now back on her feet and volunteering with the organization.
“Everything that Pastor April has been doing, coming here for the two hours, being treated with dignity and love [by] Pastor April. You look up and feel better about yourself.
Which for Pastor Belt this is what it's all about.
“I feel it makes me feel great to see that it's working that what has been put in place here. New Friends Homeless Center is actually helping people to get back on their feet again," she said.