At Craig Krull Gallery in Bergamot Station Arts Center, decorated paper lunch bags will move from meal service to exhibition walls for one evening. Westside H.O.D.G. will host its Lunch Bag Art Exhibition from 4 to 6 p.m. Nov. 1. The bags are made by volunteers for a Sunday meal effort that has operated across Los Angeles since 2020.
Organizers told the Santa Monica Daily Press that the Sunday Lunch Bag Project has reached nearly 1 million hungry people since it began during the pandemic in 2020. Volunteers decorate the bags before filling them with meals for distribution. Donations at the exhibition will support the project, Westside H.O.D.G. and student clubs at Santa Monica and Culver City high schools.
A Project Born Out of 2016 Living Rooms
The roots of the project trace back to Hancock Park, where Jennifer Levin founded H.O.D.G. — short for Hang Out Do Good — in 2016. Levin and friends began gathering in one another's homes after Donald Trump's election that year to talk about becoming better citizens, according to the same report, and the group's early efforts included petitions, postcard writing, protests, door knocking, and food and clothing drives. Levin has said she had long wanted an adult group that resembled Boy or Girl Scouts, where members learn skills and do good deeds together.
The lunch-bag collaboration itself pairs H.O.D.G. with the Hollywood Food Coalition, known as HoFoCo, which describes the partnership as a joyful collaboration distributing bags directly to individuals and families experiencing homelessness and food insecurity throughout Los Angeles County. A typical bag includes a hearty sandwich — nut butter and jelly, turkey, or ham — along with fruit or a healthy fruit pouch, per HoFoCo's own description of the program. HoFoCo delivers the volunteer-made lunches to more than 20 partner nonprofits, including Food on Foot, The People Concern and Covenant House, the Daily Press reports.
Why Sundays Became the Group's Mission
Levin has said HoFoCo specifically requested Sunday deliveries because most organizations feeding unhoused people are closed that day. Westside H.O.D.G. launched in May 2025 when Alison Rou and Loren Segan started the chapter, with state Senator Ben Allen attending the group's first meeting as a guest, according to the Daily Press. The Westside chapter initially offered 100 lunches to the Hollywood Food Coalition but delivered 400 on its first Sunday, and organizers say it has not missed a Sunday delivery since.
The larger collaboration has also maintained a weekly schedule, according to the Daily Press, which quoted an organizer: “We've never missed a Sunday. Not for Christmas, not for the LA Marathon.” Segan has described the decorated bags as messages of hope and reminders to recipients that they are not alone. Levin has said she considers the bags art because of the emotional response they can inspire.
Student Clubs Behind the Decorated Bags
High school involvement has become a backbone of the Westside effort. Kaeli founded the club at Santa Monica High School and Olivia founded the one at Culver City High School, with both having made project lunches alongside their families since middle school, the Daily Press reports. Their clubs rely on bake sales and donations to fund gatherings that can turn out anywhere from 40 to 150 lunches at a time.
Olivia recalled a Sunday when she realized the bags her group had made would feed 150 people that day, according to the Daily Press. Bonnie Friedericy, a Hollywood Food Coalition volunteer, is among those who help with the broader distribution effort.
Gallery Space Donated Between Shows
The exhibition landed at Craig Krull Gallery after Krull offered the space between two other shows, the Daily Press reports. Krull had previously organized Out of the Ashes at Bergamot Station, an exhibition for artists who lost homes and studios in the Palisades and Eaton fires, making the lunch bag show something of a continuation of his gallery's recent focus on community response. The one-night exhibition will include work by both well-known working artists and everyday volunteers who have decorated bags for the project.
Food access and getting to the gallery
The project’s focus on meal access sits within a wider county need: the LA County Department of Homeless Services and Housing says more than 1.3 million people in the county rely on food assistance programs. That figure describes overall reliance on food assistance; it does not establish how many people lack access to meals on Sundays. Craig Krull Gallery says its earlier Out of the Ashes exhibition ran from February 19 to March 1, began as a fire-relief effort and gave artists a venue to share responses to the fires—a different purpose from the lunch-bag project’s recurring meal distributions. For visitors traveling to the exhibition, the Bergamot Station Arts Center visitor guide lists the Metro Expo E Line’s 26th Street Bergamot stop as a transit option.
Meal-count figures tied to the broader Sunday Lunch Bags collaboration vary depending on the source: HangOutDoGood's own materials have cited almost 900,000 lunches delivered to partner organizations over six years, while HoFoCo's press materials describe close to 700,000 meals provided, and a separate report put the figure at 690,000 meals distributed. The Daily Press's nearly 1 million figure reflects organizers' own account of the project's reach since 2020.
Alison Rou has urged Westside residents to subscribe to the chapter's newsletter and join the lunch makers directly. Those interested in getting involved can reach the group at [email protected] or through hangoutdogood.com/westside-la.
