The mission is simple—“to feed people,” says Mindy Poortinga, founder of LasVegan Food Pantry. The nonprofit, which formed at the start of 2021, distributed some 4,800 grocery boxes last year, she says. Today, they give out about 55 boxes per distribution event, held the second and fourth Saturdays of each month.
“We made sure everything was super streamlined, convenient and easy for the community to reserve a box. The only stipulation with us is that they have to pick it up,” she explains. “We don’t require IDs. We don’t have some of the stipulations that other food pantries have.”
The no-barrier pantry began with a Facebook post in December 2020. After the first few months of the pandemic, shutdowns, furloughs and layoffs had clearly taken a toll. So Poortinga took to social media, asking, “Does anybody have any interest in a food pantry?” and offering her vegan food business experience and management skills to get it running. “I got a ton of responses,” she says.
In June, Poortinga and her team of dedicated staff and volunteers started working out of warehouse space offered rent-free by the United Movement of Kindness, a nonprofit organization in Las Vegas’ Corridor of Hope, where homeless shelters and services are concentrated in the city’s urban core. They also work with other local organizations and pantries, like the Solidarity Fridge, to make sure nothing goes to waste.
Coming up on its second anniversary, LasVegan is preparing for a December 14 drag queen charity bingo event at Spring Valley drag bar Jackpot Bar and Grill. “We could pack more of a punch in the community with donations, so to speak, if we had more resources—food as well as the money donations,” Poortinga says. “I don’t know how anybody could do this without the network.”
Anyone who would like a box of plant-based groceries just has to make a reservation at lasveganfoodpantry.org and pick it up. Follow on Instagram at @lasveganfoodpantry for the distribution schedule, updates and information about fundraising events. We caught up with Poortinga to find out more.
How does it work? We do distributions every two weeks. So people reserve starting the Monday [of the week] that we have a distribution. And the distributions are the second and the fourth Saturday of each month. So people reserve the boxes, and then they’ll show up and pick them up.
Are you looking to reach only vegans, or any specific group? We don’t care necessarily if they’re vegan, or what their stance is on veganism. We just want to make sure that our community gets fed. We don’t judge. … Just because someone looks put together and drives a nice car, does not mean they’re not food insecure.
You’ve recently started operating out of warehouse space in the Corridor of Hope. Have you adjusted operations at all for that demographic? We’ve started allocating into our budget sack lunches … because a lot of those guys don’t have the ability to carry a big box around, or to cook or open a can. We make sure that they have bottled water and food that they can walk away with.
What are the pantry’s views on food waste? What do you do with leftovers? I know so many restaurants would rather throw food away than give it away, which I think is so wrong and wasteful. … In this day and age, nobody should go hungry with the amount of food waste.
We get a certain percentage of no-shows. Life happens, we understand. So that’s when we partner with the Solidarity Fridge, sort and give them the boxes. … We want to make sure that what we have doesn’t go to waste.
Do you place a limit on grocery box reservations per person? Nothing like that. We have a local organization that reserves sometimes six or seven boxes, and we’re fine with that. As long as the food gets eaten, we don’t care who it goes to.
Starting a nonprofit is hard, but LVFP seems to have taken off, and it’s only in its second year. How did you put together the infrastructure to do it all? I’d already owned my own [vegan] companies, so the community kind of knew me already. … So, when [it started], I said I was interested in running it. I had management experience that I knew would be really handy, and I had tons of contacts. … I think people having an idea of who I was kind of helped.
What’s in it for you? The community. A lot of people out there are lonely and feel isolated. And it wasn’t until I went vegan over eight years ago that I found my community, and I’ve never experienced anything like that. … We’re all very different—very different backgrounds, very different lifestyles—but we all come together for the same cause.
I always tell people, if they’re lonely or feel isolated, to start volunteering and giving back to something you really care about. Because that is so rewarding.
Click HERE to subscribe for free to the Weekly Fix, the digital edition of Las Vegas Weekly! Stay up to date with the latest on Las Vegas concerts, shows, restaurants, bars and more, sent directly to your inbox!
