Calabasas Snack Drive Brings 5000 Snacks To Hospital Workers

CALABASAS —Health care workers put in gruelingly long days at the hospital, and sometimes it’s nice to be able to grab a quick snack to refuel. Thanks to the efforts of Calabasas nonprofit Connecting A Caring Community, health care workers at hospitals across the Valley now have thousands of snacks to choose from.

Last Sunday, the nonprofit hosted a “Goodies to Go” drive-thru snack drive in the parking lot of the Rodeo Realty office in Calabasas. A crew of volunteers, many of whom serve on the board of Connecting A Caring Community, took in some of the 5000 “snacks for your belly, love for your soul”, along with many handwritten cards, donated by hundreds of members of the Calabasas community. The volunteers then delivered the snacks — which needed to be store-bought and tightly sealed to comply with hospital safety regulations — to ten hospitals, where workers later thanked them for helping them get through the day.

The nonprofit, which runs a number of charity drives and community engagement programs, began the current snack drive campaign on April 1st. Since then, they have also gotten companies like Clif Bar, Blk Beverages, Dole, GoGo squeeZ, and Kate’s Real Food to send the hospitals thousands of their own donations. The company has also raised $18,000 in donations from the community in just 23 days. Now, they’re focusing their attention on drive-by snack donations in other nearby communities (one in Malibu got over 5000 yesterday) and celebrating National Nurses Week by collaborating with Canoga Park-based Whitney Howard Designs to provide gifts for 5,000 local nurses.

“All of us are under the philanthropy of ‘the more you give, the more you get,’” said founder Lisa Kodimer. “We want to mobilize everyone into a life of giving.”