The San Francisco/Marin Foodbank has been distributing food to San Franciscans for over 25-years. It’s pretty easy to get to at 900 Pennsylvania Avenue and I have to say, one of the easiest places to find a place to find free parking.
These days the Food Bank is in an odd position: in a booming city like SF, it’s not difficult to find a job. But, because of the success of the tech industry, the cost of living is extremely high and as a result, SF has an extremely large number of working poor.
Unfortunately, when distributing funding, the government looks at unemployment rates only and because SF has low unemployment rates, the Food Bank has repeatedly lost its funding. This is one of the many complex issues that drive protesters to the streets and to Google Bus stops.
All being said, the Food Bank is dependent on volunteers and donations. They see over 25,000 volunteers each year who come to the warehouse to help feed 225,000 San Franciscans who simply can’t put food on the table. A shocking 105,000 meals worth of food is distributed every day. Here is their volunteer info and registration page.
To help out, a team of us from the company I work for headed to the food back to help unpack Safeway donations and re-box these donations into distribution packages. During our two-hour volunteering session, our team managed to sort, pack, and box enough pasta, spaghetti sauce, green beans, tuna, and peanut butter to help over a 1,000 individuals… and get this food out of the warehouse to people who need it (rather than have it simply sit there).
We also found out during our session that you can volunteer at the Food Bank as a means of paying parking and traffic violation tickets. This is done through Project 20/22.
