For six years, volunteers have turned plain paper lunch bags into tiny works of art, packed them with meals and sent them to hungry Angelenos. This weekend, the bags get a gallery wall of their own.
Westside H.O.D.G., a volunteer group whose initials stand for Hang Out Do Good, will host a one-night Lunch Bag Art Exhibition from 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, at Craig Krull Gallery in the Bergamot Station Arts Center, 2525 Michigan Ave., No. B3.
The show celebrates the artists and lunch makers behind the Sunday Lunch Bag Project, which organizers say has fed nearly 1 million hungry people across Los Angeles since 2020. Donations will support the project, Westside H.O.D.G. and the group's student clubs at Santa Monica and Culver City high schools.
"As for calling it art, you just have to see these bags," said Jennifer Levin, who founded H.O.D.G. in Hancock Park in 2016. "Anything that makes your heart leap like they do is art and deserves to be seen."
"I've always yearned for a Boy or Girl Scouts for grown-ups: a troop where we learn new skills and do good deeds," Levin said.
After Donald Trump's election in 2016, Levin and friends began gathering in one another's homes to figure out how to become better citizens. They petitioned, wrote postcards, protested, knocked on doors and ran food and clothing drives, inviting everyone they knew to join.
"They did, and before we knew it, we had a really big troop!" Levin said.
Other chapters followed because "Los Angeles is too big for one group," she said. Alison Rou and Loren Segan launched the Westside chapter in May 2025; state Sen. Ben Allen was the guest at its first meeting.
The lunch project began in 2020, during the pandemic. "People were so lonely and disconnected, and making art, even temporary art on a lunch bag, was a way to cope," Levin said.
The Hollywood Food Coalition, known as HoFoCo, told volunteers how much recipients loved the artwork. "Sometimes it was more exciting to them than the PB&J inside!" she said.
The partnership began when the group, hoping to feed unhoused people, asked Bonnie Friedericy, a HoFoCo volunteer, whether the coalition could get its lunches into people's hands.
"She asked how many. We said 100. 'Sure!' she said," Levin recalled. "That Sunday, we showed up with 400. And it never stopped. … We've never missed a Sunday. Not for Christmas, not for the LA Marathon."
Friedericy asked for Sundays because most organizations that feed unhoused people are closed that day, Levin said.
HoFoCo, which redistributes food across Los Angeles, delivers the volunteer-made lunches to more than 20 partner nonprofits, including Food on Foot, The People Concern and Covenant House.
"Our lunches, offered in bags that are decorated with care, are messages of hope: a reminder that they're not alone, that someone is thinking about them," Segan said.
Levin credits the Westside chapter with finally staging an art show. "The Westside gals figured it out and made it happen. This show is all theirs!" she said.
Segan, whose mantra is "art is always the answer," said the idea caught on. "Whenever we mentioned the idea of a lunch bag art exhibit, people would light up and say, 'I'd come to that!'" she said. The show includes work by well-known working artists alongside everyday volunteers.
Marjorie Ornston, a curator and member of the chapter's leadership team, approached her longtime friend Craig Krull, who had organized "Out of the Ashes" at Bergamot Station for artists who lost homes and studios in the Palisades and Eaton fires. Krull offered his gallery between two shows.
"It's so powerful to see the creativity that abounds in our community, and what gifted minds and hands can make using a simple paper bag as a canvas," Segan said.
Noting anxiety over the midterm elections, she said organizers are grateful the gallery can offer "a joyful, uplifting antidote."
Kaeli, who founded the Santa Monica High School club, and Olivia, who founded the Culver City High School club, have made lunches for the project with their families since middle school, Segan said. Their clubs now use bake sales and donations to fund gatherings that turn out 40 to 150 lunches at a time.
"You don't realize the impact you're making by doing what seems like a small thing," Olivia said, according to Segan. "But one Sunday, after we loaded the car and I saw all the lunch bags we were bringing, it hit me: We're feeding 150 people today. That's not nothing."
Rou urged Westside residents to sign up for the chapter's newsletter and join the lunch makers. "In turbulent times, being together and doing something good for others is a balm," she said. "Plus it's fun!"
For more information, visit hangoutdogood.com/westside-la or email hodgwestla@gmail.com.
RSVP link for the event: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdQi8QDfo_DSGaU7z2R27x3GO6ua6ruLL3v4IEshUQG3_ndLw/viewform