{"id":207983,"date":"2026-03-06T22:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T22:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/207983\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T22:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T22:05:08","slug":"long-beach-community-table-perseveres-despite-loss-of-federal-funding-but-needs-community-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/207983\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach Community Table perseveres despite loss of federal funding, but needs community help"},"content":{"rendered":"

After eight years of diligently serving the community and overcoming every obstacle in its path, a local nonprofit has a daunting new hurdle it needs to clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Long Beach Community Table (LBCT), which feeds around 6,000 people a week, is asking the community for desperately needed financial support due to a recent sharp decline in available federal funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in tighter circumstances than normal,\u201d LBCT founder Kristen Cox said. \u201cBut you know, we\u2019re gonna make it work. Because one thing LBCT has always done is we\u2019ve been up against the odds before, and we always pull through. [\u2026] We all just kind of go, \u2018We\u2019ve done this before, we\u2019ll do it again.\u2019 You know, somehow, we don\u2019t know how, but somehow a miracle always happens, some kind of miracle, or whatever you want to call it. [\u2026] Time after time after time when we thought, \u2018This is it,\u2019 it always works out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more local news? <\/p>\n

Sign up for the Signal Tribune\u2019s daily newsletter<\/p>\n

Shortly after President Donald Trump came into office in January of 2025, his administration halted several federal grants, specifically aimed at health care<\/a> and food access<\/a>. The acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, Matthew Vaeth, said it was necessary to pause the distribution of federal grants<\/a> to ensure this funding only went to organizations that align with Trump\u2019s ideals, which included \u201cending \u2018wokeness.’\u201d Although a federal judge later unfroze federal grant funding<\/a>, many grants were still delayed or cancelled.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally, I would be writing a grant against maybe 25 people,\u201d Cox said. \u201cNow it\u2019s like 2,500 people, which means competition is a lot more difficult [\u2026] so it\u2019s just harder to maintain the same level of funding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cox became motivated to form LBCT after working for Bernie Sanders\u2019 2016 presidential campaign and becoming disillusioned after the delegates in the Democratic primary chose to back Hillary Clinton over Sanders.<\/p>\n

\"\"Long Beach Community Table volunteers pack food boxes for distribution at the Bellflower warehouse in November 2021. (Courtesy Long Beach Community Table)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was after finishing up the Bernie campaign and realizing that we couldn\u2019t really make change through the electoral system at all, or even through the political system,\u201d Cox said. \u201cThe whole thing is geared to help wealthy people and not poor people and that\u2019s not why I got involved in politics. So we all shifted our focus to what can we do in our own community to help people more directly, instead of trying to get policies changed or whatever, because there\u2019s no interest in changing the policies from the wealthy people that actually own the government and the parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

She then switched her focus to filling the stomachs of some of Long Beach\u2019s most food insecure residents, heading into local parks to hand out meals, clothing and hygiene products to unhoused neighbors.<\/p>\n

\u201c[We] just gave them the dignity of knowing that somebody cares about them, that somebody will look them in the eye instead of going, you know, \u2018Oh, he\u2019s funky or whatever.\u2019 Like, the shame and the stigma that goes along with being homeless or being housing insecure. [\u2026] We make a very big point of letting them know that they\u2019re part of our community,\u201d Cox said. \u201cWe care about them just as much as we care about our next door neighbor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long Beach Community Table distributes food at eight Long Beach parks every weekend, and also delivers food to bedbound individuals at 600 local households weekly. In total, the nonprofit serves around 6,000 people every week, making it a vital resource for the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always say food is freedom, but basically what we mean by that is it\u2019s at the intersection of everything, and if you can get free food or very cheap food, as opposed to the very expensive food that\u2019s in the grocery stores or the restaurants, these days, you\u2019re in a much better position to be able to put gas in your car, which may seem like a minor thing, but if you can\u2019t get to work, then you lose your job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long Beach Community Table founder Kristen Cox<\/p>\n

Cox stressed that if LBCT had to halt its food distributions, it would result in a far-reaching ripple effect, leading to health and public safety hazards for many residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf, for example, 6,000 people in Long Beach were suddenly unable to get healthy, fresh food, it would be devastating for Long Beach,\u201d Cox said. \u201cHonestly, it would be. It would create a huge crime wave, it would create a lot more pollution, because people that are food insecure become people that are housing insecure, and then they end up getting sick, they don\u2019t have adequate restrooms, and that kind of thing. So then you\u2019re seeing feces on the sidewalk or whatever. It\u2019s just much more likely that you\u2019re going to come in contact with something that\u2019s going to cause disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Long Beach Community Table volunteers pose for a photo after a distribution at Grace Park in January 2020. (Courtesy Long Beach Community Table)<\/p>\n

In spite of a lack of funding, Long Beach Community Table remains steadfast in its mission to serve the community, even more so now that the public is facing inflated grocery prices and a troubled job market. The nonprofit is searching for a larger (and hopefully less expensive) warehouse that can support the increasing needs of the community.<\/p>\n

Cox said while they appreciate donations of hygiene products, financial donations will be able to help more people because LBCT can use them to buy items wholesale.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know how to get everything in bulk so your dollar is going to stretch a lot further,\u201d Cox said. \u201cWe\u2019ll have people that will bring in like five bottles of shampoo [\u2026] \u2014 what they don\u2019t know is that that same $25 could have probably purchased 100 bottles of shampoo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those looking to make a financial donation to LBCT, can visit bit.ly\/give-lbct<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After eight years of diligently serving the community and overcoming every obstacle in its path, a local nonprofit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7524,83272,1570,131,95896,133,132,5751],"class_list":["post-207983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-federal-funding","tag-food-access","tag-health","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-community-table","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-nonprofit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}