Feels so good to help feed LA’s hungriest
By Rachel Heller
After a brisk morning packing 30,000 pounds of produce at the L.A. Regional Food Bank, 26 GiV LA volunteers took a jaunt to the Yard House restaurant downtown for mimosas and mingling. By the cheerful camaraderie among them, you wouldn’t know they’d all met only hours before. And later, “When I got home I saw all these people adding each other on Facebook,” said GiV LA co-founder Nicole Pajer. “That’s exactly what I wanted to see.”
Pajer and colleague Jeff Woods envisioned the organization as a way to “do something good for the community and also have a good time together.” Even the group’s name—an acronym for gather, interact, volunteer—announces an equal emphasis on making a difference and making friends.
Social volunteering is a more engaged take on social networking, with dozens of homegrown groups offering ways to direct all that social energy into something positive. Whether it’s jumping into a Saturday morning food bank assembly line or dining in to free donation dollars, more and more people are finding they can get their altruistic fix—a known endorphin booster—and have fun at the same time.
That’s the idea behind Dining for Women (DFW), a national nonprofit 
that encourages local chapters of women to meet monthly for home-cooked meals and donate what they would have spent at a restaurant to a charity supporting women. DFW’s burgeoning Hollywood chapter has so far raised more than $2,000 for causes in El Salvador, Mexico and Kenya.
“I felt like I needed to do something good and have some purpose,” explained Hollywood chapter founder Stacey Gualandi, whose gatherings have drawn up to 24 guests. “When I thought about doing it as a group, that really spoke to me.” DFW’s events are held monthly in private homes, with guests bringing dishes that are often based on the cuisine of the country the group is supporting that month.
Pajer hopes GiV LA will become just as popular. “People say, ‘I want to volunteer, but I don’t really know what do to, and don’t want to go by myself,’” she said. “My hope is that we can give them a way to connect.”
For more about GiV LA, email contactgivla@gmail.com. For the Hollywood chapter of Dining for Women, email slgualandi@hotmail.com. DFW has chapters in Woodland Hills, Agoura and Thousand Oaks.
Photos: top, Dustin Downing; bottom, Stacey Gualandi
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