The My Friend's Place we know today all started with a sack lunch of one turkey sandwich, a chocolate pudding, a boxed drink and an orange. In December of 1987, after seeing the homeless young people on the streets in Hollywood, co-founder Craig Scholz and I decided something needed to be done.
On January 8th, 1988 we packed 50 sack lunches and headed out for our first Friday night meal drive where we were greeted by over 100 young people in need of food. Today I'm still personally proud of the fact that after that evening in '88-we never missed a single Friday night, rain or shine.
At first we had no idea what we were doing; we simply drove around Hollywood and handed out the sack lunches. But this experience quickly changed. We began not only handing out food but spending most of our time having conversations with the young people and getting to know them. We lent them a kind ear, and learned about their lives and what brought them to the streets. Our quick hour-long route turned into two plus hours of building relationships with and learning from these young people.