- If you walk on to any TV or movie set in this town,
you'll find a spread of food for the cast and crew.
As assistant directors my next guests
have seen countless gourmet meals end up in the trash.
We all have, honestly,
if you've ever been on set, there's so much food,
it broke their heart, seeing good food go to waste.
So they figured out a way to collect all the leftovers
and pass it out to homeless people here in LA,
which is so awesome.
And that is why they are today's rad humans.
(audience cheering and clapping)
(upbeat music)
- All right y'all, from Everyday Action,
please welcome Sam Luu and Hillary Cohen.
(audience clapping)
- So, I honestly can't believe
this hasn't already existed
'cause I've been on so many sets over like 20 years.
There's so much food that's wasted.
So how did this all get started?
- So I've been an AD for the past 10 years
an assistant director,
and I've literally watched just hundreds
and thousands of meals thrown out every day.
Like you said, I don't know if you have or not
been on a film set,
but there is like a hundred to 300 people
working on the set every day.
So on any given day,
there could be 150 background
that are working in the morning that then get wrapped
and there is no food for them to eat.
And it's then thrown out, right?
- Yeah
- So this is leftover food. - Yeah.
And up until this point, it's just been thrown out.
Me and Sam were always told, it's illegal,
it'll just be thrown out.
So we put together a non-profit that has liability insurance
that protects against that
and allows us to go pick the food up.
I started this during COVID in 2020.
- It's so amazing
(audience clapping)
- Thank you.
I started it in 2020 when we were kind of at a shutdown
and a pause in life.
And I knew I couldn't do it by myself.
You know, we currently pick up from about 10 sets every day.
It should be about 30 to 40 every day.
And I knew I needed someone that was a powerhouse,
that was my friend that felt the same way about me as people
that could help.
So I called Sam up and I was like,
"I have this idea.
Will you go down this rabbit hole with me?"
And she did.
(audience clapping)
- It's such an amazing thing, like I said,
that it just hasn't already existed,
but this is pretty close to your heart, right Sam?
- Yeah. I, you know,
I come from a lower middle-class family
and my uncle struggles with schizophrenia.
And so for many years he was, you know,
he'd be in facilities and then they would ship him
somewhere in the US and he'd end up homeless.
And you know, every time I pass someone on the street,
I just think there's someone's family member.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- You know, that's someone's uncle.
So when Hillary told me she wanted to do this, I was like,
I couldn't think of anything better to do with my life.
- It's a big deal that what you're doing.
And it's also just highlighting,
it's highlighting the fact that you're recognizing
that they exist.
They're there.
We see that there's a problem we're trying to help.
Like even the simple thing, you know,
act of that I think can change someone's life.
But we have one of the board members
of Everyday Action in the audience.
He was on NCIS LA for 12 years.
You last saw his character,
Eric drive off into the sunset in a Lamborghini,
not too shabby, let's say hi to Barrett Foa.
Hi!
(audience cheering)
So, how did you get involved?
- I have known, I've known Hillary for over a decade.
She tells me where to be and where to go on set.
And then she's like,
"Hey, do you want to help out with this?"
This has been a problem that has haunted Hollywood
literally for as long as film and television
has been around, right?
We've seen those lasagnas
getting scraped into the dumpster every day.
And they're like,
they're just like you and I they're like,
we're actually going to do something about it.
- Yeah.
- We're actually just gonna file a little bit paperwork
and put together a non-profit
and sort of change the entire industry.
We're fast becoming the industry standard.
And it's gonna be sort of embarrassing
if you're not on our list.
And if we're not picking up your food
and giving it to our homeless brothers and sisters
that are our neighbors.
- Yeah, it's so much waste.
(audience clapping)
It's so much waste.
Well, so, Hillary you have big plans
for Everyday Action moving forward, right?
- We do.
So we currently pick up from about nine sets every day.
We're kind of at our tipping point, right?
We were,
our first set was me and Sam with 75 meals
chasing down people being like, "Hey, you need food".
Now we pick up from nine shows nonstop.
And we're kind of like at the tip
of where we're able to go, right?
We raised about a hundred thousand dollars this year.
We employ PAs and backgrounds,
(audience clapping)
thank you,
to work for us,
but we want to employ more and more people
so that we can pick up all of the food in Hollywood.
You know, we're very close to having
everything with CVS, all of HBO, all of Netflix,
we should have all of those shows coming to us,
but we are a little non-profit,
that's just at our little tipping point.
So we want to raise a million dollars
so that we can pick up the food from every set in LA.
(audience clapping)
- Well, I have some good news.
If you know, Sprouts Farmer's Market, you know,
they're everything you love about a farmer's market
with the most delicious, fresh fruits and veggies
nature has to offer.
And the sprouts healthy communities foundation
wants to foster goodness.
So they're donating $10,000 to Everyday Action.
(audience cheering)
And also,
I'm gonna double that.
So it'll be a total of 20 coming at y'all.
(audience cheering)
And please everybody out there,
if you can financially donate.
If you can boots on the ground help them get the food there.
This is a very important thing.
Thank y'all so much.