Hillary Cohen ’07 (left) with fellow assistant director and Every Day Action partner Samantha Luu.
Clark alum’s nonprofit to feed the hungry earns CNN recognition
As a longtime assistant director on television shows like “The Office” and “Mad Men,” Hillary Cohen ’07 watched countless scenes play out on soundstages and outdoor sets across Los Angeles. But nothing affected her as deeply as the real-life scenarios she observed just beyond those creative workspaces, where unhoused people camped out on sidewalks and in abandoned lots.
Most disturbing to her was the fact that the actors and crew routinely dined on chef-prepared meals — steak, seafood, fresh vegetables, baked goods — with the gourmet leftovers tossed into the trash at the end of the day. The sumptuous aromas wafted through nearby tented communities, close enough for the residents to smell them, but with no access to food that was destined to become garbage. When she inquired about the waste, caterers insisted that giving away meals exposed them to potential lawsuits.
To Cohen, this made no sense — and inspired her to change the dynamic. In 2020, she established the nonprofit organization Every Day Action, which collects leftover food at filming locations and special events around Los Angeles and redistributes it to those in need of nourishment. Cohen estimates her organization has redistributed hundreds of thousands of meals, averaging about 120,000 pounds of “rescued” food a year.
Her efforts have earned the notice of CNN, which has named Cohen one of the top five CNN Heroes of 2025. The news network is now staging a campaign that lets people vote for the CNN Hero of the Year from among the top five.
According to a CNN profile of Cohen, “The group picks up meals 24 hours a day, seven days a week from five to 10 locations per day, covering an estimated 90-mile radius in Los Angeles. The food is distributed to shelters, food pantries, nonprofits, community fridges, and homeless encampments.”
Cohen isn’t the first Clarkie to be recognized as a CNN Hero; Catalina Escobar ’93, L.H.D. ’16, was named a Top 10 Hero in 2012 for her work with the most vulnerable in Cartagena, Colombia.
It’s been an incredible professional and personal journey for Cohen, who came to Clark from Glastonbury, Connecticut, and double-majored in theater and screen studies. She immersed herself in the arts — performing, designing costumes, learning how to make stories come alive on stage and screen. Classes with the late English Professor William Tapply made her a better writer (“He had a dry, sarcastic sense of humor that no one in my class seemed to understand except me,” she laughs), and Theater Professor Gino DiIorio helped her harness her creative drive.
“Clark was a place where I could mold my education in a way that I wanted it to be,” she recalls. “I was able to learn in my own way, and have fun, too.”
While still a student, Cohen landed an internship as an assistant on the locally shot movie “Boy Band” (later retitled “Breakdance Academy”) and was later elevated to first assistant director. From there, she embarked on a varied career that included internships at 20th Century Fox and a grueling 400-day training regimen for assistant directors, which earned her admission into the Directors Guild of America. She worked on the sets of “Mad Men” (actor Jon Hamm remains a good friend) and “The Office,” and spent 11 years at “NCIS: Los Angeles,” concluding her time there as a producer.
“I wrote my college thesis about how the character of the ‘Average Joe’ prevails in movies and TV, and less than five years later, I was at the table read with Steve Carell and Will Ferrell for Steve’s last episode on ‘The Office.’ It was just crazy,” she recalls.
Cohen got her first taste of running a nonprofit when she operated a mask-sewing business during the COVID shutdown, producing 5,000 masks.
“I began to think about what I could do to make a bigger difference,” she says, noting how much positive energy and compassion are frittered away in unproductive pursuits. “It’s amazing how much time humans spend on hate and destruction; if we weren’t so angry with each other, we’d be on Mars already. Doing something for someone else, even if it’s for 10 minutes a day, can be powerful.”
The idea for food redistribution began germinating for Cohen about a decade ago. “All these things lined up for me to be here,” she says. Every Day Action works with 45 distinct agencies and businesses that have expertise in handling food distribution.
Cohen’s partner in this venture is Samantha Luu, a fellow assistant director. The duo uses the skills they’ve built from years of doing logistical planning and scheduling to make Every Day Action hum. “We’re high-stakes problem-solvers,” Cohen insists.
The nonprofit has the added benefit of providing additional employment opportunities for production assistants and background actors — who typically work in the entertainment industry for low pay and at erratic hours — to collect food from sets and events. “We say, ‘We don’t care about Scorsese, we care about the mashed potatoes,’” Cohen says.
Every Day Action is very much a grassroots organization that needs significant funding to grow its efforts, says Cohen, who sees the potential for studios and other entertainment entities to participate “on a massive scale.” She would one day like to expand the nonprofit’s reach to other states.
Recognition as the CNN Hero of the Year would be a cinematic-like step toward that perfect Hollywood ending.
