OAKLAND

MARCH 2020

This was the activation that started my relationship with WCK. It was early March 2020, right at the beginning of COVID. I got a call from a producer offering me a job driving a box truck up the California coast, hauling supplies from Southern California to Oakland. I initially said no—I didn’t want the job—but he pushed, and I agreed, assuming it was some kind of production.

About halfway up the coast, the person I believed was producing the project called me. He said they’d put me up in a hotel in Oakland that night, I’d drop the truck the next day, and then they’d fly me back to LA. I joked, “Yeah, I definitely don’t want to hang around Oakland any longer than I have to—the COVID cruise ship is docking tomorrow.” He paused and said, “Funny you mention that… that’s where you’re bringing the truck.”

That’s when I learned this wasn’t a production at all. It was for a nonprofit called World Central Kitchen. I stayed and helped out, driving daily from their kitchen in San Francisco to the Port of Oakland. The cruise ship had run out of food, and the passengers—now quarantined onboard—needed to be fed.

It was an appropriate introduction to WCK. I found myself suddenly at the center of a major news event, something that would become familiar over time.

Once the passengers were tested and disembarked, the operation wrapped. I drove the truck back to Southern California, still loaded with leftover supplies. WCK had just signed the lease on a new warehouse. When I pulled up, it was the first time we—as an organization—opened its doors. I started unloading the truck, and from that moment on, I was the warehouse manager.

I stayed in that role for about a year. After that, I moved onto the Relief team—the group that deploys to disasters around the world to provide food.