Bicycle Meals: Koreatown-based volunteers deliver food to unhoused Angelenos, but can they keep it up? Listen 8 min MORE Bicycle Meals volunteers prepare to head out and deliver meals to unhoused residents in Koreatown. Photo by Angel Carreras.
Three days each week in Koreatown, you’ll see a pack of cyclists wearing overstuffed backpacks and zipping toward people living on the streets. They belong to Bicycle Meals, a local mutual aid group that’s been serving the neighborhood’s unhoused residents since August 2020.
“Our main goal is feeding the homeless every day. We’re almost there,” says Bicycle Meals’ founder Mike Pak, who previously launched a running club and burger joint with friends.
Feeding unhoused Angelenos via 2 wheels: Meet Koreatown’s Bicycle Meals Listen 25 min MORE Bicycle Meals volunteers prepare to head out and deliver meals to unhoused residents in Koreatown. Photo by Angel Carreras.
Since August 2020, the mutual aid group Bicycle Meals has been delivering bags of sandwiches, fruit, snacks, masks, and hand sanitizer to unhoused residents of Koreatown. But now volunteers are back to work as the economy reopens, and they can’t donate so much time preparing meals and pedaling them to those in need. Also, the venture is largely self-funded, and contributions from local businesses aren’t constant. So how will the organization pivot post-pandemic?