Ryan Rossow, founder of South Bay Food Initiative, receives award

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. - May 2, 2019 - PRLog -- Ryan Rossow, a student at Mira Costa High School was recently honored for outstanding academic effort along with extra-curricular activities. The award was teacher nominated. Rossow founded the South Bay Food Initiative, an organization that helps local food banks, food pantries and other non-profits while providing community service hours for volunteers.  "There is a huge issue with food insecurity in Los Angeles. Over 1.6 million people don't have enough to eat and we have students in the South Bay who want to make a difference. We decided to connect the two through the South Bay Food Initiative (SBFI)", says Ryan Rossow, co-founder and President of the South Bay Food Initiative. According to Rossow, "volunteers and Charities can sign up on-line, and we coordinate events like food sorting, food baskets, food drives, and food insecurity awareness events."

Many organizations like the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and Shared Bread have already benefitted from the hundreds of volunteer hours donated by the South Bay Food Initiative. The students and volunteers also appreciate the ease of finding community service hours through the SBFI website.  Alec Bailey, a Junior at Mira Costa says, "I just look on their website and I can match a date that works well with my schedule for volunteering. I need volunteer hours for organizations that I belong to, like the National Honor Society". According to Rossow, "We have expanded to include more schools in the area like Redondo Union High School, Peninsula High School and Palos Verdes High School. Parents and Siblings want to help out too and now we are now able to serve more people who are hungry. We are committed to fighting food insecurity in a significant way."  For more information about the student-run organization, visit the South Bay Food Initiative Website at http://www.southbayfoodinitiative.com.