The Food Pantry will be:
CLOSED FRIDAY JUNE 21
CLOSED FRIDAY JULY 5

The Food Pantry is an all-volunteer nonprofit–and we’re looking for new volunteers!
We’re located in Potrero Hill in San Francisco, and open on Fridays only. We unload and set up every Friday from 8:30 AM to about 11AM, and open to offer groceries from 12:30 PM until 3:30PM. We welcome your help for morning, afternoon, or both shifts: please note that we can NOT take groups.

We’re looking for friendly, hardworking volunteers who enjoy working with all kinds of people. We especially need multi-lingual (Cantonese/Russian/Spanish-speaking) volunteers, those who can help with heavy lifting, and those who love logistics and organizing! All ages fine; no groups, please.

Contact sara@thefoodpantry.org

A newly enrolled mother just wrote to us:
“I had a great experience last Friday. The grocery was healthy and exactly what we needed. The kids loved baked sweet potato tonight. We have also been eating the apples and oranges. They make the perfect snack. I want to thank you and your organization again for helping us out. The food pantry’s program cut our grocery bill by half this week. Our family really appreciate it!”
If you or your family need more food, please contact us, or come by The Food Pantry on a Friday. We look forward to meeting you!

See this wonderful story about The Food Pantry from KQED’s “Bay Area Bites,” which calls us “a sort of free pop-up farmers’ market for the poor.”

The Food Pantry will be closed the Friday after Thanksgiving. We’re grateful for all of our volunteers, and the whole community that makes this work possible.

You can support us through the holidays by making a donation: it costs us just $1 to provide groceries for a family for a week, and your $50 gift will help feed a family for a whole year.

Please make checks to The Food Pantry, and mail to 500 DeHaro, San Francisco CA 94107. All donations are tax-deductible.

We give thanks for you!

Most of the food we give away is fresh produce

Unlike many programs that rely on processed foods and canned goods, The Food Pantry gives away mostly fresh fruits and vegetables. Thanks to the San Francisco Food Bank and its network of farmers, we give away literally tons of delicious, healthy produce every single week. And we’re always grateful for smaller, super-local donations from neighbors who offer us apples, figs, lemons and more from their backyard gardens. If you live in San Francisco and want to share what you grow, give us a call!

We’re still enjoying the last of a spectacular watermelon crop. Soon the citrus will come in, along with apples and pears, cabbage, turnips, potatoes, yams, beets and greens. In every season, we’re so glad to be able to give real, fresh food to the families we serve.

Food Runners delivers

Every Thursday, we get a call from Paul O’Malley, a volunteer driver with the San Francisco-based Food Runners. “I got your bread,” he says. “Dropped it off, see you next week!” And there, at the door of St. Gregory’s, are large bags full of fresh whole-grain loaves, baguettes, rye rounds, and seeded rolls.

Food Runners is a brilliantly simple and incredibly effective nonprofit started in 1987 by chef and cooking school instructor Mary Risley, who was appalled by the waste she saw in restaurants. She persuaded some colleagues in the industry to save their excess food instead of throwing it away, so she and a few friends could pick it up in their cars for delivery to local shelters and food programs. Today, Food Runners has over 200 volunteers like Paul, who make runs in their own vehicles, as well as its own truck and driver for large pickups. In San Francisco, more than 250 restaurants, bakeries, groceries, caterers, company cafeterias and farmers’ markets regularly donate perishable food that would otherwise be thrown out…as do individuals with food left over from one-time events like weddings, company picnics, holiday parties or bar mitzvahs. Food Runners collects it all, and brings the food to hundreds of pantries, after-school programs, shelters, soup kitchens, and children’s centers.

Coordinating, dispatching and arranging pickups and deliveries is the work of Nancy Hahn, director of operations for Food Runners and a passionate supporter of groups like The Food Pantry. “We want to prevent waste and build community,” she says. “Why throw away perfectly good food? There are hungry people who could really use it right now.”

Nancy sends The Food Pantry plenty of bread every week, and she calls us when she has unexpected bounty: last month it was surplus box lunches from a week of conventions, with gourmet sandwiches and cookies, as well as huge untouched trays of cheese and fruit. “600 lunches at the Palace. 600 at the Grand Hyatt. Another 150 at the Marriott,” says Nancy. “It was positively raining food!”

If you live in San Francisco and have food to donate, call Food Runners….a smiling volunteer will come pick it up! If you have time to offer, call Food Runners…Nancy will send you to collect food and deliver it to someone who needs it. You might even find yourself at The Food Pantry, where a grateful group of our volunteers will help unload your car. Food Runners, 415-929-1866.

Come celebrate with us as we mark our twelfth anniversary! Friday, November 2 at 11:45 AM….

Our volunteer, Angel, helps one of our visitors, a month before her 101st birthday!

Thank you to Wanda….our cabbage lady yesterday, and the best-dressed volunteer at The Food Pantry!

We’re so grateful for all the volunteers who make The Food Pantry happen every Friday. If you’re interested in helping us out, please let us know!

Our beautiful volunteer Wanda