Meet Sam Luu | Every Day Action Co-founder & DGA 2nd Assistant Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sam Luu and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sam, how does your business help the community?
Our company, Every Day Action, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public benefit organization. We rescue waste and re-distribute it to those in need. Our mission is to inspire others to take care of their local community and to ask themselves daily: What can I do to help someone today? How can I be the reason someone feels seen, heard, valued, loved and supported?

Currently our main means of fulfilling our mission is through the reallocating of excess food and meals from film production sets in Los Angeles to shelters, encampments, food coalitions/pantries and community fridges. There are roughly 66,000 homeless currently living in Los Angeles (those numbers were gathered pre-Covid).

We started our non-profit because we as co-founders who work in the film/tv industry watched food and meals going into the trash and we could no longer sit back and let it continue. We took action and formed our company in July of 2020. With the leftover catered meals, we try to donate the food in or near the area impacted by filming that day.

As we have several options for reallocation of the leftovers (I.e. community fridges, shelters, etc), we are able to reach a variety of beneficiaries who are experiencing food insecurity in different ways. Some sets donate everything from food to set dressing and props and by reallocating those items, we help to reduce overall waste as well as reducing the production’s carbon footprint. We redistribute what we cannot use for our beneficiaries to other non-profits.

When we started our company, we really wanted to make sure that we were structurally thinking about how we could impact our community and industry in many different ways. We wanted to create change inside and outside our industry. We knew we wanted to reduce waste and help the unhoused and food insecure, as well as those underpaid in our industry: production assistants and background actors. We knew daily reallocation driving for us could be a good supplemental income opportunity for them. They would be able to work around their own schedules as they work on their careers. We’ve been able [through grants and donations] to pay a few drivers, and it is our goal as a company to pay above minimum wage for this position. We

We’ve been so grateful at the outpouring of support we’ve received. Thanks to friends, family, co-workers and industry peers, we were able to get our company started and immediately connected to shows and networks. We’ve been able to pick up from over 20 different sets and thanks to our amazing list of volunteers and our handful of paid drivers, in our first year we reallocated over 100,000 meals!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Hillary and I have both been assistant directors for over 10yrs. She is now an associate producer in charge of COVID scheduling and protocols for NCIS: LA. (She can tell you more about the difficulty of her current job — I don’t think I could do it justice.)

I’ll answer this more from my own perspective. As an assistant director at this point in my career I’m quite excited about the shift in female leadership in our industry currently. I got to where I am today professionally through very hard work and dedication. Our job requires long hours and lots of stress: friendships and relationships are often tested. Strong support systems and humor were how I overcame most of the challenges of the job. Problem solving at a very high pace is quite difficult to do for hours on end, but that’s the job. Dealing with logistics and problem solving at that pace feels as if I was groomed for our non-profit work. I think it’s been a huge advantage that we had from the beginning even to now. What I’d like for the world to know about our story is that we are just two people who decided to do something. We took action and that’s honestly what it takes to make change: action.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Oh dear, this is a tough one!

D1: we would hit Santa Monica and relax a bit at the pier before snaking up the coast to Malibu for Point Dume, Cholada Thai Beach Cuisine, and then for Ladyface Brewery on the way back. D2: we would journey to DTLA for Eggslut in Central Market and to wander in MOCA and The Broad. Grab lunch at Wurstküche, wander around Chinatown and then play some retro games and pinball (my favorite) at 82 before hitting Lost Spirits Distillery for a whiskey tasting and tour. Dinner at Blossom Vietnamese Restaurant then cocktails at a couple bars like Resident and Library Bar. D3 & 4: come out swinging with a Catalina Island 2 day getaway. While there, it’s imperative to eat lobster rolls and visit the botanical gardens after doing a nice bike ride. D5: Breakfast at Little Flower in Pasadena and then a trip to the The Huntington Gardens. La Grande Orange Cafe is an old favorite of mine in Pasadena. Drinks and a cheese plate with live music at The Cellar. D6: The Hollywood Tourist Lite experience — quick once around the walk of fame before driving to a spot to hike to the Hollywood Sign. Grab lunch at Tatsu then drive (or hike) up to the Observatory. Finish off with a nice dinner and drinks at Prospect Gourmand (a hidden gem in Beverly Hills) or Cheebo in Hollywood. D7: Silverlake Reservoir time and maybe hidden staircases for some great views of the area. Lunch at Flore Vegan, one of the first places to teach me that meat wasn’t always necessary to have a tasty meal. A nice journey over the hill to hike to the Wishing Tree for stunning views of Lake Hollywood and Glendale. Then finishing the Hollywood experience with either dinner and a show at The Hollywood Bowl or a lowkey dinner and drinks at Birds.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Ohh I have so many shoutouts! First shoutout: Hillary Cohen deserves all the credit and recognition because EDA was her idea and she’s the Co-founder who works tirelessly 24/7 to make EDA possible. She’s a powerhouse boss and friend. She IS the story of EDA and lives it.

Massive shout out to our drivers & volunteers: every week they show up to reduce food waste and fight insecurity. They drive all over the city at all hours of the day, seven days and week. Thank you for making all of this possible.

Big shoutout to all the incredible people who helped us from the very beginning and all along the way: the list of people would be pages long but each of you are responsible for where we are today and we are so incredibly grateful.

There are so many people to thank and shout out to that I’m sure I’ll forget them all… a huge shout out to our board, everyone who has donated in some capacity, and to our amazing friends and family that have rallied behind us in every way imaginable.

I also want to shoutout to all the producers, production coordinators and supervisors, sustainability coordinators, networks and everyone who made the bold decision to partner with us and use our services. Thank you for being a part of change and helping the community and industry.

Website: www.youreverydayaction.org

Instagram: @every_day_action

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/every-day-action

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/youreverydayaction

Youtube: https://youtu.be/M2vgT3-4cbw

Other: GofundMe: https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/every-day-action-inc

Image Credits
Kathy Schuh Jack Herman Dale Robinette