On Saturday February 6, at 8AM, the Food Pantry’s own operations director, Board member, and longtime super-volunteer Michael Reid will be interviewed on KPIX CH 5 (San Francisco.) Don’t miss him!
….and look for Micahel again on the 11th of February in Union Square, where he and Sara Miles will be honored for their work with The Food Pantry at the Heroes & Hearts benefit for San Francisco General Hospital.
It’s been raining like crazy for most of January, and at The Food Pantry we try to keep things moving quickly so nobody has to get soaked waiting in line. Thanks to our more than fifty regular volunteers, we can usually unload and set up food for 600 people in just a couple of hours.
The winter citrus is coming in nicely, with wonderful oranges and some lemons. We’re also firmly in carrot-potato-cabbage season, and last week we had some beautiful beets. Two visitors from Korea who were lending a hand were amazed– they’d never seen this vegetable before. Another volunteer who regularly brings in homemade beet juice to share gave them some, to everyone’s delight. Pink stained lips all around!
Wishing everyone who is part of the food pantry family a healthy and happy new year!
On December 18, The Food Pantry held its last pantry of the year (we can’t get deliveries on Christmas Day or New Years Day), featuring a surprise donation of 2,500 beautiful mandarin oranges from the San Francisco General Hopsital! We were visited by a young woman who’d begun volunteering with us as a child; by strangers, and by old friends: some fallen on hard times and some grateful to be giving back to other hungry people.
We counted up the numbers for 2009: at our flagship site at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, The Food Pantry gave away free, fresh groceries to 27,986 people this year.
Your donations, your hard work, and your faith keep The Food Pantry going. Thank you, and please help us continue to feed the hungry in 2010. Make a tax-deductible gift before December 31.
In hard times and in times of celebration, everyone yearns for meaningful ways to give and share. Instead of frantic shopping for one more last-minute present, you can make a donation to The Food Pantry, knowing that it’ll make a real difference in the lives of hungry people.
It costs us just $50 a year to give fresh groceries––apples and pears, potatoes and carrots, rice and beans, bread and so much more–– to each family we serve. We welcome donations of any amount with gratitude.
You can donate online or send a check to The Food Pantry, 500 DeHaro Street, San Francisco CA 94107.
If you’d like us to send a beautiful gift card announcing that you’ve made a gift in someone’s name, please include the name and address of the recipient with your check, and we’ll mail the card out.
Thank you for making the holidays a time of food for all.
The Food Pantry is tickled pink by the generosity of two of our food-loving, hard-working, peace-love-and-justice-sharing neighbors in the Mission District, Mission Pie and Mission Street Food.
Mission Pie is a fabulous café that makes, yes, PIE of all kinds, from ingredients grown entirely on its nonprofit Pie Ranch in the Santa Cruz mountains. Kids from the Mission help grow the food, harvest the wheat, bake the pies and sell them back in the city. Mission Pie is about as local and real as food can get….and they’re currently matching all donations you make in their cafe to The Food Pantry and another neighbor, Martin de Porres House of Hospitality. “Abundance is all around us in San Francisco,” write the folks at Mission Pie. “Let’s share it with those who need it most.” Please drop by Mission Pie for a delicious slice of walnut, apple, quince or even chicken pie, and put a few bucks in the jar for us.
Mission Street Food has been sharing with The Food Pantry and a whole slew of neighborhood nonprofits since it opened. The twice-a-week restaurant, staffed by wildly inventive guest chefs and housed in a funky Chinese restaurant, gives all its profits away. They’ve given the proceeds of several evenings to us, have invited Paul Fromberg and Sara Miles of The Food Pantry to cook there, and now are giving us all the profits from wine sold at Mission Street Food (via a generous donation from Elyse Winery.) So drink up! Make a reservation at Mission Street Food, check out their amazing PB&J (pork belly, jicama and jalapeño) dish, and know that your dinner will help support local nonprofits.
Our heartfelt thanks to Anthony and Karen, Karen and Krystin.
about hunger in San Francisco and the San Francisco Food Bank: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wKSWl3bMQE
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/us/july-dec09/hunger_11-24.html
If you need food, call 211. If you can give, please click on our donate button or support your local food bank.
The Food Pantry will be CLOSED November 27 (the Friday after Thanksgiving) December 25 (Christmas) and January 1 (New Years Day.)
The Food Pantry celebrated our ninth anniversary at St. Gregory’s on Friday November 6, welcoming old friends and new volunteers, visitors and long-time supporters. Our profound thank you to everyone who has given time, money, prayer, encouragement and presence to The Food Pantry over the years. The report below is from our volunteer Virginia Giblin:
Autumn is here and the watermelons are replaced by winter squash and leafy greens, though the onions and potatoes and apples remain. The Pantry is a slower, calmer place; the bags of groceries are more manageable as we shift into a comfort level with our new system of serving the hungry people within our San Francisco community. This allows us more time to make eye contact, say hello, lend a hand and be both human and kind in these trying times.
Hard to believe that today the Pantry commemorated its NINTH anniversary. A brief celebratory service was held, replete with the sharing of wine and – of course! – bread, blessed by Steve Hassett (English) Connie Lam (Cantonese) and Anibal Mejia (Spanish.) The deepening of community from the core circle of providers to the wider circle of St. Gregory’s, and out into the streets of San Francisco is what transpired today. Everywhere is blessing-– we need only quietly go within to know. Then sing and feast, however simply, then give thanks. These troubling times too shall surely pass.