What do we have to offer each other?

Desserts for the Hospitality Hour

Have you checked out the ‘Volunteer’ tab lately?  It’s right up there, three tabs over from the ‘Home’ tab where you’re reading.  That was easy to find, wasn’t it?  If you click on it you will find a list of the volunteer opportunities Welcome has to offer.  We’ve got some great new ones thanks to our collaboration St. Francis Lutheran.

I’m going to highlight a few service opportunities below because that is where we are most looking for help right now, but what I want to write about is the kind of different model Welcome and the other SF CARES collaborators use. 

Did you know that in addition to all the ways you can help us, there is a whole list of things we would like to offer you?  Each week, in addition to being able to sit with, serve and learn from those we serve, in addition to being able to go over to the Free Farm and get your hands in the soil, Welcome and the other SF CARES collaborators offer a variety of worship experiences, opportunities to meditate, opportunities for self-reflection and learning and fun.  You can find the whole list here. Details for our new third Saturday trainings are below.

Everybody who serves with us and everyone we serve has something to teach and something to learn.  Everybody who serves and everyone who is served needs nourishment.  So many of our volunteers tell us they get more out of serving than the feel they are giving.  That may be so.  Either way a little extra to replenish one’s soul can only make it more true, can only leave one more ready to serve and be served.  So even if you aren’t ready or able to help with the specific needs below, come get you spirit fed at one or more of our programs soon.

Every Wednesday:

• 10a.m - 2p.m.Senior Program, (152 Church St), activities, lunch and hospitality for seniors are provided at St. Francis Lutheran Church.  We are looking for people to help serve the meal, to sit and visit with our guests, and to assist them as needed.  We can use kitchen help from 10a.m. until 1p.m.and folks to help clean up from 1p.m. until 2p.m.

Every Saturday:

• 9:30am-1:00, Hospitality Hour Preparation, (152 Church St) Food sorting and some prep work.  Come help us sort donated food and do some of the prep work for Sunday's meal.

Every Third Saturday:

• 1:00p.m - 3:00p.m. Urban Ministry Training Series (152 Church St) Come join us to learn about a variety of topics to improve the safety and welcome of your urban ministry or program.  Everything from maintaining good boundaries to dealing with challenging guests to what is the most helpful menu for your feeding program to nourish your guests and reduce waste.

Every Sunday:

• 7:30am, Hospitality Hour, Hosts, (152 Church St., just up from Market) Servers, Cooks, Dishwashers, Clean up at St. Francis Lutheran's Hospitality Hour.  We will soon be in need of a volunteer to power wash the sidewalk at 9:00am.

You can see the details of these projects here.  http://sfcares.blogspot.com/2013/02/our-newest-project.html

You can contact us at 415-673-3572 ext. 105 or sfcares@saintpaulus.org to learn more about any of our opportunities.  And come back here regularly and click the Volunteer tab to see what’s available to you to receive as well as for you to do.

Saturday Dinner Photo Story

With more than 300 meals served and 40 volunteers, this Saturday Community Dinner at Welcome is typical of what you would find any 2nd or 4th Saturday of the month.

I began cooking the chili at 3pm. With nearly 10 years experience cooking for the homeless and hungry, I've got cooking for large groups down to a science. Tonight's meal cost about $750 in total (donations from volunteers, in-kind donations and from facebook friends paid for tonight's meal). Other nights AA groups, interfaith groups or meditation groups bring the food.

Volunteers begin arriving at 4pm and then start setting up tables for our guests.

Volunteers also sort toiletries and clothing that are donated by congregations around the Bay Area. We give away hundreds of clothing and toiletry items at ever dinner.

Since I my blog posts are read widely and I travel often around the country sharing the work of Welcome with congregations, sometimes we receive donations from outside the Bay Area. This week, a box of socks arrived from St. Andrews Lutheran Church in San Mateo, CA.

After the donations are sorted, around 4:30pm the desserts are cut and put on plates. Cake is a favorite of our guests. Since the craving for sugary foods are similar to those for drugs, we give our guests many sugary foods through out the evening to enable those working on their sobriety to battle their cravings.

Steve, seen below, brings bread and candy that he begins handing out to guests waiting outside in line around 5pm. Steve also chats with the guests and helps to ensure that they are treating each other with respect and mindful of neighbors who live nearby.


Around 5:15pm all the volunteers gather to set their intentions for the evening. Instructions are given and volunteers are able to ask questions about the dinner before it starts.

At 5:30 guests arrive, find their seats and the volunteers begin to serve our guests.


Sometimes a guest or volunteer will hop on the piano and play some tunes for our guests.


Meals are served from 5:30 - 7pm.

After the meal, volunteers help clean dishes, the bathrooms and the kitchen. Clean up typically finishes between 7 and 8pm.

Saturday Community Dinners

Most feeding programs in San Francisco are not open on Saturday or Sunday nights, the Saturday Community Dinner is vital to hundreds of hungry individuals in our neighborhood. But unlike other feeding programs:

1. Our community dinners serve guests restaurant style (in terms of how we serve and the quality of food), instead of making them wait in a line. Volunteers have often been heard saying that the food served at our dinners is higher quality then they eat at home.

2. We eat with guests, learning their names and stories, allowing them to serve us. As a result, many volunteers discover that they receive more than they feel like they give at our dinners.

Every 2nd and 4th Saturday a month the Welcome Ministry provides a meal to 150-200 members of the community. Many of our guests are homeless or formerly homeless, many are seniors, many are low income and others come to be a part of the community.

Different congregations, students or groups provide the food and volunteer each dinner and eat with guests. For groups, like students and others who cannot afford to provide the food, dinners are sponsored by donors including the Van Loben Sels/Rembe Rock Foundation and a local AA Group (see the photo below). On special occasions we also hand out clothing, socks, help people send cards to family members and hand out blankets.

Fred, Michael and Steve are volunteers who have supported the Welcome Ministry dinners for years. They use the dinners as a way to stay sober and to encourage others to work towards sobriety.

If you are interested in volunteering at or hosting a Saturday Dinner please contact Pastor Valerie McVee (sfcare@saintpaulus.org or 415-673-3572)

eat

At Welcome we believe that all people need to be fed in their mind, body, spirit and stomach. Poverty has made it difficult for some individuals to gain the access the food they need to survive. We not only provide food for those in need, but we also help our guests learn sustainable ways to secure food in the future. At Welcome there are no lines, we serve restaurant style (bringing food to seated guests) and always eat with our guests. As a result, our meals are community building experiences that help those who are often marginalized to learn social skills, feel connected to their community and to provide us with direct feedback about our programs.


The Welcome Center: Every Tuesday from 2-4 pm Welcome offers a light lunch to guests in a safe communal setting, where guests and volunteers eat together. Here members of the community are able to fill their hunger and gain access to the other support services that Welcome has to offer. Many of the guests at this meal have been homeless for more than 20 years, so slowly helping people become comfortable with socialization is a big part of what we do. Welcome Center guests make appointments with Jay and Megan to get more individual support throughout the week.

Saturday Community Dinners: Every 2nd and 4th Saturday a month we provide a meal to 200+ members of the community, including the homeless, marginally housed and many low income seniors. Different congregations, students or group provide the food and volunteer each dinner and eat with guests. On special occasions we also hand out clothing, socks, help people send cards to family members and hand out blankets. How to host a community dinner.

Hospitality Hour: Every Sunday morning, 90-140 individuals are served a two course meal at St. Francis Lutheran Church. A Community Thanksgiving Meal feeds an additional 200 individuals each year. This project is in partnership with St Francis Lutheran Church, Food Runners and SF CARES.

The Senior Program: Every Wednesday, activities, lunch and hospitality for seniors are provided at St. Francis Lutheran Church. This project is in partnership with St Francis Lutheran Church and SF CARES.

The Free Farm: A community farm created on the ashes where St. Paulus Lutheran Church used to be before it burned down in the early 90's.  Since its creation in 2010, more than 8,593 pounds of free food have been harvested and given away to it's neighbors and lunch is served around noon every Wednesday and Saturday.  This project is in partnership with St. Paulus Lutheran Church, SF CARES, the Free Farm Stand and Produce to the People.

For more information on how to volunteer, please contact: sfcares@welcomeministry.org

Loaves and Fishes

Tonight at our Saturday Community Dinner, which we host every 2nd and 4th Saturday, we served 276 people and handed out clothing and toiletries to more than 150 of our guests. At this time last year we served 153 people. Since no other organization has meal programs on Saturday nights, despite the fact that we don't advertise in the local free eats charts, our numbers have been rising steadily over the last three years.

For these dinners we depend on the generosity of congregations and other organizations. Churches and volunteers donate their gently used clothing and toiletries that they collect from hotels during their travels. The congregation at Old First Presbyterian recently had a sock and undy Sunday in order to help us get more clothing and toiletries for our dinners.

The truth is that if we had twice as many donations, there is enough need to give away twice the number of donations.

Tonight I went to the grocery store three times to get more food and supplies so we could feed the additional 100 people who were hungry tonight.

We need your help to serve those who are in need for the rest of the year. All our 2nd Saturday dinners have groups that are bringing the food for our guests, we need individuals and/or organizations who would be willing to help us serve and will either bring food or would like to sponsor the food for our 4th Saturday dinners.

The dinners typically run between $1.50 to $6 a person, depending on the quality of the food and if the dinner hosts cook it themselves or get pre-cooked food.

Contact Megan if you're interested in sponsoring a dinner. From now until January, we will be preparing enough food for 300.

Urban Food Share: Community Gardening Project

Just a hint of some of the work we're doing to help people recover from the recession. Our new partner in this project is Produce to the People.

How to respond to panhandling?

When someone asks you for a dollar on the sidewalk, do you ever wonder what would be the most effective way to help?

Born out of a series of meetings between faith groups, businesses and local residents of the Polk Gulch District, the Welcome Ministry listens deeply to the needs of those living in poverty, the community and city government. Our programs not only fill in the gaps between what the city and other organizations provide, but focus on the crucial barriers that prevent people from improving their quality of life.

For example, when the Welcome Ministry learned that lack of identification was preventing hundreds of homeless individuals from gaining access to city and organizational resources, we developed the Homeless Identification Project. As a result organizations with ten times the budget of the Welcome Ministry began referring their clients to us. While helping 224 people obtain their birth certificate and 121 obtain state issued identification may not seem like much, the program enabled more than 155 individuals obtain housing in 2008.

This year, the Welcome Ministry is creating two crucial new programs. As we began to help our formerly homeless guests move indoors, we learned that their new homes do not have proper cooking facilities. Instead of giving out food like a typical food pantry, with an assumption that individuals have a way to cook groceries, the Urban Food Share Program will provide pre-cooked take home meals, opportunities for communal cooking and gardening and health and
nutrition classes.

But the needs of those living in poverty go beyond food and shelter, many of our guests have trauma from military service, domestic or childhood abuse, violence or as a result of years living on the streets. Stress and anxiety from trauma can be debilitating. Classes and direct one-on-one care will enable many of the most vulnerable in our community to cope with or heal from the trauma that prevents them from improving their quality of life.

If you are like the Welcome Ministry, and you want to invest in small changes that can make a big difference in addressing the root causes of homelessness, please join our unique community of San Franciscans responding to homelessness, one person, one sidewalk, one city at a time.

Support the Welcome Ministry