The Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association (BKBIA) needs additional donors in order to continue a program that provides weekly hot meals to struggling college students.
Under the program, once a week meals prepared by Lola’s Mexican Cuisine in Bixby Knolls are delivered by local courier Alley Cat Deliveries to 80 students who attend Long Beach City College and Cal State Long Beach.
Over the past year, the program has been funded by anonymous donors from the Bixby Knolls community, who have been making ongoing donations to aid the local community since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020.
$150,000 has been donated to the Bixby Knolls Community Foundation, the BKBIA’s nonprofit. These funds helped keep neighborhood restaurants afloat during lockdown, supplied food pantries at LBCC and CSULB, and provided hot meals to medical workers, unhoused people and college students.
But now donated funds are running low, and the program will only be able to run through the end of September unless more money can be raised.
“We’ve been really happy and really proud to be a part of this,” said Blair Cohn, executive director of the BKBIA. “The students love it. The schools love it. And we just hope that others will come forward and help support the cause and keep us going.”
Cohn said that the program costs $5000 a month to run.
To donate to the program, visit the BKBIA website.
