TARZANA : Group to Open New Kosher Food Pantry

The Sova Kosher Food Pantry, a nonprofit Jewish service organization, will open a new outlet providing free food to the hungry in Tarzana this month in response to what members say is a shortage of food providers in that area.

Debbie Dyner, site director for the food pantry, said the organization began looking for a location in the west San Fernando Valley to open its third Los Angeles food distribution site after finding that increasing numbers of Valley residents, many of them Russian Jewish immigrants, were coming all the way to Sova sites in Santa Monica and Fairfax to get groceries.

“We figured there must be a problem there,” she said.

Sova discovered that although there are more than 20 sites in the Valley that distribute food to the needy, the Tarzana area was underserved, Dyner said. Sova has leased space vacated by a restaurant-supply company at 6027 1/2 Reseda Blvd. at a starting cost of $1,700 using its own funds, she said. The pantry will be staffed by volunteers.

At first, Dyner said, Sova projects that up to 200 people a week will come to the center for food. But after it becomes more well-known, Dyner said she expects that the pantry will rival Sova’s other two sites, which together provide food for about 1,100 people per week.

Sova is more specialized than most food distribution sites because it provides kosher as well as non-kosher foods donated from synagogues, schools and private donors. Dyner said the number of hungry who request kosher foods at the existing sites is usually only a handful per week. But she said a growing number of Jewish immigrants from Iran and the former Soviet Union in the West Valley area are expected to use the Tarzana food pantry. Besides, Dyner said a band of low-income neighborhoods located just north of Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana, Encino and Reseda will benefit from the food pantry.

Sova’s food will be available to anyone; identification is requested. The food pantry will be open beginning July 25 from 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Sundays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays. To volunteer, call (310) 828-3433.