The holiday rush is behind us, but we've still got lots to do for volunteers this month.
There's plenty of winter produce to sort: granny smith apples, butternut squash, navel oranges and more.
We've also got a huge delivery of rice just waiting to end up on a dinner table. So come in, marvel at the sight of 2,000 lb. bags of rice and help break it down to family-size portions.
And thanks to your tremendous generosity, we've got lots of full food donation barrels to empty and shelve! Contact our volunteer coordinator today.
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The San Francisco Food Bank is reaching across the Bay to meet the need in Marin – just in time for the holidays. We’ve opened four new pantries at Marin elementary schools and community centers, targeting low-income families in San Rafael’s Canal District.
In the first week alone, over 600 families were served at festive distributions featuring all the fixings needed for holiday meals. One school principal commented, "This couldn’t have come at a better time. A lot of our parents do domestic work or construction, so they’ve been hit pretty hard lately." She continued, "This community, they have that value that everything you’ve got, you work for. They help each other out."
True to her word, 40 parents turned out at San Pedro Elementary School on a cold morning in November to man the Food Bank pantry. Pedro, Alejandro and Roberto* helped unload the truck as their children raced around, hand-writing signs showing what was available that day: carrots/zanahorias, chicken/pollo; rice/arroz, and many others. By 9:00am, almost 150 families with schoolchildren in tow were waiting by the gate.
The tables were decked with rice, sweet potatoes, apples, oranges, canned peas and corn, chicken and stuffing. No one left empty-handed. As the families filed back into the school with festive red bags full of food, one parent volunteer cheerfully encouraged them to return the following week and to bring the bag back with them to be filled once again.
*All names changed to protect identity
Give a gift that gives the gift of food! Proceeds from the following benefit the San Francisco Food Bank:
Make those New Year's resolutions count!
- Remember those in need in the New Year - kick off 2009 by volunteering at the Food Bank.
- Get in shape - Gold's Gym in the Castro is offering free enrollment plus other benefits for anyone participating in their holiday food drive.
When Amy Sherman, the blogger behind Cooking with Amy, first embarked on the Food Bank's Hunger Challenge, she had one thing on her mind: how to feed herself for a week on $21. But then she tweeted - as in, she posted an update through Twitter, the popular microblogging site.
That caught the attention of Tyson Foods, who pledged to donate 100 pounds of protein-rich foods to Bay Area food banks for every comment posted on their Hunger Relief site.
The comments came rolling in, and with it, the chicken: 35,000 pounds of it to the San Francisco Food Bank alone.
Check out some of the insights and recipes the six intrepid Hunger Challenge bloggers came up with! Thanks to them - and Tyson - we'll be able to distribute even more nutritious food through our network of neighborhood pantries.
