Kat Scala

This week I decided to connect with a nonprofit organization. I currently volunteer for Downtown Women's Center LA (DWC). DWC is an organization that exclusively supports and serves women and gender diverse people who are experiencing homelessness. They focus on providing a safe and comfortable environment for gender diverse people and advocate for reducing the level of homelessness in LA. They highly encourage volunteer participation-- with over 5000 active volunteers and 30,000 volunteer hours annually. They provide in-depth orientations every month for volunteers to learn about the organization and their mission. Volunteering involves a number of opportunities: you can help as a kitchen assistant serving meals, a donations assistant organizing the donated clothes and toiletries, volunteer in the day center welcoming people who come in, as a learning assistant helping with those applying to jobs or doing work on the computers, and many more positions! They also provide housing, job-training, and clinical services, although these are not typically included in volunteer positions. I started volunteering for them, completing the orientation and signing up for my first shifts. This week, I volunteered in the Donations Center as a donations assistant. This mainly involved sorting and organizing donations, including clothes, shoes, toiletries, and other household items. While I did not get to interact with many DWC participants, I still felt like I was helping the organization and it was rewarding to see how much I had done at the end of the 3 hour shift. It also made me think about the importance of donations like those. Not only do they provide resources to people who need them, but they also promote the idea of reusing and cyclic resource use, which contributes to sustainability. I am excited to do more shifts at DWC, especially ones that involve interacting with some of the participants and seeing the direct impact of the work.

This week I decided to try supporting more local businesses, primarily those owned by women, immigrants, or POC. I have been reflecting on how I frequently prioritize convenience over sustainability regarding my shopping and food choices. It is a lot easier to walk over to Trader Joe's or Ralphs and pick up some pre-made meals instead of cooking my own from raw ingredients or finding local businesses that sell what I want. This also increases my waste production. This week, I went to the Brentwood Farmers' Market to get my produce and other snacks. A couple months ago, this market joined with the Palisades Farmers' Market to support the people and businesses impacted by the fires. I tend to focus my spending on the Palisades section now, because many of the businesses rely on revenue from the farmers' market for their livelihood. This week specifically, I bought a few empanadas from some women from Peru who had a store in Pacific Palisades. They ended up being some of the best empanadas I've had! I also bought my strawberries, kale, and tomatoes from Palisades women-run businesses. There was also a new tent set up on the Brentwood side for a woman's business called Hot Girl Sauce. I was attracted to it by the name and the beautiful pink packaging. Although I don't usually use chili oil, I bought their mild one and have used it multiple times already with bread or as an addition to my dumpling sauce. Lastly, I bought some cheese and homemade pasta from an Italian woman. While I spent much more than I would normally at the grocery store, I reflected on where that cost is coming from -- individual labor from local people trying to build their business compared to large corporations externalizing costs sometimes through exploitative labor. Overall, while the farmers' market was a great start to my goal of supporting local businesses more frequently, I would like to find more in Westwood for me to shop at regularly instead of Trader Joe's or Ralphs.