Welcome began as a series of
conversations between twelve churches in the Polk Gulch District of San
Francisco. Many of the homeless
individuals we work with are LGBTQ individuals who came to San Francisco as
young adults, due to discrimination in their hometowns. After the gay community on Polk Street was
decimated by HIV/AIDS, hundreds of adults found themselves homeless.
Our oldest programs serve food to the
homeless and hungry at Old First Presbyterian Church near Polk Street (8,436
participants each year). Eating with our
guests and listening to their needs, our subsequent programming has been
designed to meet the needs of our guests.
In 2009, our Homeless Identification Project, enabled more than 150
individuals to move indoors in one year.
As the population of older LGBTQ adults
began to get housing, Welcome began working on programming with homeless LGBTQ
youth (over 556 youth). In 2009, Welcome
partnered with the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco to use history to
help the youth express themselves, educate others (over 12,576 participants)
and become civically active. A
nationwide speaking tour at churches and shelters for LGBTQ homeless youth
enabled us to listen to the needs of youth around the country and provided the
groundwork for a conference of LGBTQ homeless youth that will gather in
Washington D.C in October of 2013.
During the height of the economic
downturn in 2010, Welcome created six community gardens on unused church land
around the Bay Area to serve the new population of homeless and hungry
individuals. The Free Farm, our largest
garden, has grown and given away over 9,000 pounds of produce to local
residents and feeds 576 participants a year in San Francisco’s Western Addition.
In 2012, Welcome began providing
nationwide educational opportunities (over 15,786 participants a year) that
enable others replicate our programs and learn about the issues that affect the
homeless and hungry in San Francisco.
This year, Welcome doubled the number of
individuals we feed by partnering with St. Francis Lutheran Church in the
Castro/Duboce Triangle neighborhood of San Francisco. This partnership will further support
homeless and hungry LGBTQ individuals with HIV/AIDS (about 5,700 participants a
year) and local seniors (1,700 participants a year).
In 2013, Welcome will feed 16,392
participants in San Francisco and provide educational opportunities for 28,362 individuals
throughout the country.
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