Newsletter - 4-07-08

Peachy Keen

Sophia loved the peach silk couch on display at the custom furniture store a few doors down from the where she worked. During her lunch hour, she'd frequently stop in, wearing her Safeway Bakery smock, just to admire the sofa's ladylike curves and delicately embroidered flowers. It was a couch fit for a princess and beyond Sophia's financial reach. Sophia didn't mind. She believed in looking towards what was possible and what was beautiful. Hope is precious to the human spirit and Sophia was always full of hope and possibility. One day, the proprietor of the furniture store told Sophia he was retiring. He'd watched the longing in her eyes for months. Just before he closed up shop, he offered Sophia the couch at a price low enough for her to manage but not so low as to compromise her first generation Greek-American pride. Sophia put the couch in her sitting room. Her pre-teen daughters instinctively knew to treat their mother's freshly acquired prized possession with care. No dirty hands, no shoes, no food, no flopping. Time passed. The daughters grew up. Sophia grew old. She died in December of 2005 leaving her daughters to sort through their childhood home; giving away much; keeping the things dear to their hearts. What to do with the peach silk couch? Neither daughter had room for it, but neither could stand the thought of parting with it. They put it storage thinking they'd figure out a better solution at some point. In December of 2006, the elder daughter, pk, decided to volunteer at Glide on Christmas. Glide told pk they didn't need any more volunteers and referred her to Marian Residence for Women.* While helping with the Christmas Eve celebration at Marian Residence, pk was deeply touched by the kindness and respect with which the staff and residents treated each other. Looking around, pk noticed that although the shelter was immaculate, there were few feminine touches and almost nothing comfortable to sit on. "What a perfect place for mom's couch," she thought. pk called her sister and they donated the couch. This past November, pk joined Food Runners. An ace volunteer right from the start, pk usually performs one or more runs per week. Two weeks ago, I put out a volunteer APB for a night pick up at City College's Downtown Campus with delivery to Marian Residence for Women. My phone rang immediately. It was pk. She wanted to do the run. When pk arrived at Marian Residence that evening laden with 8 large trays of food fresh from a cooking class, she asked the ladies there if they'd ever received the peach silk couch. The woman who met pk at the front door lit up saying, "Oh, sure! That’s the nice couch on the second floor. The one no one’s allowed to sleep on." Another gal who was helping unload the food chimed in, "Yeah, I know that couch. It's so pretty I haven't even SAT on it!" pk replied that she didn’t think she'd ever sat on it either and that her mom would probably be happy to know that her special sofa was being treated properly. Everyone enjoyed a good laugh and pk drove home feeling Sophia's smiles of maternal pride beaming down from the great somewhere out there. One never knows exactly what a Food Runners food run might bring, but you can bet that it always offers so much more than pick up and delivery.

Food Runners picked up and delivered 115,155 pounds of food in the month of March. Volunteers performed 748 runs and the truck did 261. Food Runners acquired 15 new volunteers, 3 new recipients and 3 new donors this past month. Of the new donors, 2 are donating on a weekly basis. Many thanks to the Westin St. Francis Market Street Hotel for their ongoing daily donations such as last Friday's haul of approximately 400 hamburger patties, 300 hotdogs, 30 pounds of cooked rice and 10 pounds of cooked vegetables. That's edible food that, without Food Runners, would have otherwise gone in the garbage!!

"Well, beat the drum and hold the phone - the sun came out today
We're born again, there's new grass on the field.
A-roundin' third and headed for home, it's a brown eyed handsome man.
Anyone can understand the way I feel."**

It's baseball season!! What does that mean for Food Runners? More food!! Food Runners picks up excess food from AT & T Park's Center Plate and Bon Appetite Management Company after every home game. More food. More full bellies. Pass the mustard, please!

Is your local restaurant or grocery store throwing away food? Tell them about Food Runners. It's fast. It's easy. It’s free and most importantly, it makes a difference.

Nancy

* Marian Residence for Women is a 30-bed homeless shelter in SOMA that admits any single woman aged 18 or over who can take care of her own physical needs, such as bathing. Available beds at Marian Residence are given out by lottery each evening at 7 p.m. To keep her bed, each woman must claim it by 7 p.m. daily prior to the lottery. Three meals a day are provided.

** From "Centerfield" music and Lyrics by John Fogarty.

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