Everyone Of Us Can Help The Homeless

Many people have felt helpless over the homeless the past two months. Shelter in place forced us to pound the streets less. Supermarkets were limiting supplies. Food banks requested less people, to avoid crammed environments. This all made sense, in order to keep everyone safe from spreading the virus. With kitchens closed and less foot traffic, hand out food has reduced to a minimum. But now that the shelter has shifted towards a slightly more relaxed state, please consider the ways you can help the homeless. It'll be a tremendous support for our neighbors who live on the street:

Grocery shopping: Please buy a few extra bananas. They're really cheap at Trader Joes and Grocery Outlet, costing around 20c per banana. Hand them out to the homeless when you pass by.

Supermarket freebies: Even though Safeway's Play Monopoly has ended, Safeway confirmed they're still handing out a few extra tickets. Please check yours and if you've won a bagel, donut or any other food, wouldn't it be nice if you paid forward by giving it to a local who lives in a tent?

Food Runner support: Food Runners is San Francisco staple but they had to tweak their business during Covid-19. Instead of accepting donated food by local institutes, hotels and restaurants to distribute to ones who needed it most, they received food that required cooking. So they jumped on the task, set up a kitchen space at 1525 Waller and volunteers have been donating their time (two hours during the week or weekend) in helping prepare and package food for others. 

Lend an ear with phone help: Many people have suffered depression from living in isolation. Please contact Shanti.org and donate your time by signing up to the Shanti program and calling ones that just need someone to chat with. 

The above are temporary pay-forward initiatives but if you're like the SF CARES team, you know that once you start, you won't stop. Those bananas won't eat themselves, the phone won't dial itself, the produce won't chop itself and freebie supermarket wins won't cash in themselves. Let us all do our part and help others.