Gaining Shelter-In-Place Weight? Try Three Meals A Week...

With so many of us working at home due to shelter in place, it's very easy for those extra cakes to get eaten, the second helping of dessert to vanish and then feeling too sluggish to exercise off the excess food. The weight piles on slowly yet surely and before we know it, everyone back in sweat pants because nothing else fits. It's pretty much the nature of the beast in this bizarre 2020 existence. So let us reset your mind and priorities with this heartbreaking story of poverty and malnutrition. No need to order lunch in until after you've read this:

The Associated Press ran a heart wrenching feature about how Covid-19 has catastrophically dismantled any minimal and basic standard of living in Hounde, Burkina Faso. Yes, we had to Google it also. It's in Western Africa. Their annual and big time harvest comes with little food as a result on any given year but due to the pandemic, hunger has rocketed to extraordinary levels. This photo (below) is not a child with already structured features forming, this is one month old Haboue. The markets are closed due to Covid-19 restrictions so as a result, her family sold less vegetables and her mother's too malnourished to feed Haboue. This is what poverty looks like. Did you put down that burger yet?

 

The pandemic has strangled already starving communities and villages around the world. In Western Africa, 10,000 more children are dying per month. This staggering figure is only accentuated by more than half a million children (per month) suffering 'wasting' - malnutrition that distends stomachs and causes spindly limbs from lack of calcium. 2019's 'wasting' was at 47 million. 2020, due to the pandemic, is already up another 6.7 percent. One in five children in Burkina Faso have chronic undernourishment and since food prices have rocketed based on the lack of supply yet sheer demand, over 50 percent of the country are left starving. 

While reading this, did it put you off opening that bag of chips? 

With 2020 in a bleak state, next year will be worse in the region since the chain reaction of people unable to work due to zero (yes zero) energy, deaths and less people planting crops, means 2021 results in less farming, which obviously produces less food. And the cycle continues. More than 128,000 children will die within the next 12 months as a result of the virus and its affects on the local society. By the way, what are you having for dinner? Thai or pizza?

The World Food Program stated that global famine from Covid-19 is hitting 'biblical proportions' and 30 percent of the population will suffer from wasting. Not only do these families lack the sheer energy to get to the nearest hospital for help, but with social-distancing restrictions, the rules are in place that the afflicted must not spread the virus so are discouraged from coming near first responders. 

Afghanistan has hit a red zone alert on hunger with malnutrition spiking by 13 percent this year alone. Food prices have risen by 15 percent and four in every 10 Afghan children are stunted from lack of food. Yemen is on the brink of famine, the Sudanese now live off one meal to the next, a 65 percent increase from 2019, and basic goods prices have tripled, no thanks to inflation reaching 136 percent. People in Darfur are resorting to eating grass, weeds and plants. The 'lean season' is generally when crops are growing and not ready to sell. So far, 2020 has been one entire and continuous lean season.

Are you getting ice-cream to enjoy after your Thai or pizza? Possibly the $7.99 a pint gourmet brand? How does it feel when you touch your extended stomach, full to the brim with rigatoni? Maybe envision how it'd feel if that was an extended, distorted stomach that hasn't seen food in three days. 

Please do the right thing - cut the amount of your food spending in half, starting today, and donate the rest of your food spend to UNICEF. Because lacking energy from eating a big meal is absolutely nothing like lacking energy because your bones are breaking due to three bowls of millet porridge (water mixed with grains)...a week.

 

 

Mask Up & Grow Up - Covid-19 is Rising in San Francisco

San Francisco has had its fair share of social distancing rules tighten up since day one (mid March), compared to most of the country's more relaxed laws. As a result, the city's number of people with Covid-19 were classed as 'under control.' With the local government deciding to start reopening non essential businesses a month ago, this brand spanking idea was shot down days before the officiating date so the excitement of having a haircut, massage or tattoo was thrown out the window. Why on earth the city decided that direct hand to body contact with strangers was a solid step in reopening San Francisco is completely and utterly beyond us. If anything, these businesses should have been on the phase 4 list, alongside concerts and religious gatherings. The idea of not spreading the virus by contact with strangers seemed to fall off the radar once a mani/pedi was added to the next opening phase. Who writes these rules?!

Unfortunately, during the past 14 days, the Covid-19 count in San Francisco catapulted from 4000 to nearly 5000 cases. Medical attention also tripled, with 26 people treated for the virus at hospitals on the 26th June, which then rocketed to 80 people on the 15th July. Our gorgeous 7miles x 7 miles land is officially now on the state's watch list of sky-rising cases.

Social gatherings with non-household members has been a huge factor in this re-outbreak of a number jump. Well done to everyone that had gatherings indoors and outdoors with people that don't live under your roof. Seriously, congrats and mazel tov to all the selfish ones that just couldn't resist a BBQ amongst pals. And it's been well document in recent statistics, that whenever the virus rears its ugly head to the masses once again, the homeless are hit the hardest. During the first few months of shelter in place, 20% of Covid-19 cases were among the homeless since they are the most concentrated groupings in our society. 

From the selfish ones with a roof over their head, that refused to stick to the social distancing laws, nor wear masks, nor spritzing with the masses of hand sanitizers dotted around the city, you all directly contributed to the city's uprising. 

Don't be selfish, think of others, be considerate and do exactly what you're told to do:

• Stop hanging around in groups with non-household members
• Stick on that mask EVERY time you are out the house
• Sanitize your hands at every public pit stop that has disinfectant

It's not rocket science...If you see this sign, you don't bat an eyelid and you comply. So why are people not adhering to the mask/social gathering/hand sanitizer rules? 

Are You Proud Of Your Last Four Months?

We've all had to reverse switch our lifestyles since shelter-in-place commenced mid March: By working from home, being laid off, signing for unemployment, losing businesses, saying distanced goodbyes to loved ones, protesting, social distancing rules forever being adapted to, creating new innovations, sitting in pajamas for more than we'd like, pushed to the limit from saving lives... That list continues.

But one day, changes will take place. Life will return back to what we are familiar with and within a few days, our natural instincts to slip back into old routines will shadow the past 120+ days. If you were probed this question 'You have over four months off from your standard daily life, what would you achieve in that time?' most people would consider dramatic feats as a go-to mission i.e. learning a new language, finally redecorating your home, traveling to remote countries, philanthropic achievements that would feed your soul. Not one person would say 'I sat on the couch, wearing bed socks, and binged on Netflix.'

Yet there was no real warning with Covid-19. So the idea of breaking away from the norm and trying something newly premeditated flew out the window. Wallowing in self pity was the first upheaval stage, followed by financial stress and worries, leading towards varying levels of frustration, step stoned by anger and retaliation, sprinkled with resentment and twitching to get back to regular daily life with 'enough is enough, I'm SO over this virus.' This is another list that appears to be evolving.

Throughout the Covid-19 duration, SF CARES has blogged about the multitude of organizations and individuals that grabbed the reigns and ran with producing something new and good to help others. These spiritually lifting goals greatly helped the ones that stepped up because they simply felt valuable, useful and productive. Helping others, while completely discarding a solitary selfish motive, is the greatest reward. It's an honest day or few hours of work. It's a change from the regular routine and it makes everyone feel fulfilled.

The pandemic may take weeks, months or years to dissipate, or it may be a divine test that we've all been faced, and vanish just as quickly as it arrived.

So ask yourself this: What can I do today to make changes for the better? How can I help the needy who are greatly suffering today? How can I aid the poverty that will appreciate my support?  Ultimately, what am I going to do right here and now, so I can later claim a milestone I'm truly proud of? 

 

Please Donate To Our New Initiative - Essentials for Homeless

Even though the Facebook donate button has been around for a few years, we're VERY excited to announce that we now have a button on our Facebook page. 

SF CARES has never fund raised until now. We've managed our cash flow, invested wisely, received local support through multiple sources and kept our philanthropic efforts alive via creative approaches. These include:

Receiving donated glasses for our six-times-a-year Vision Event 
Receiving donated food, a kitchen and dining area for our ongoing HIV/AIDS Friendship Banquet 
Receiving in kind physical donations for our poverty stricken community, by kind and generous people who drop off clothing, food, blankets etc which are given to our street-living recipients within minutes

So why did we decide to pursue a Facebook donate button? Because Covid-19 has shook the economy to its core, people are on tight budgets, we can't freely roam the city to offer our time or material donations and our immediate future needed a rethink.

SF CARES works alongside all our partners but our partners, like us, needed to shut up shop and button down the hatchet until shelter-in-place eased up. The concept of operating-as-usual was kicked to the curb. Even working on shoestring ideas such as social distancing eye tests couldn't even commence:- people coming off the streets coughing, sneezing, pacing and touching objects while waiting for their eye test, trying on multiple glasses until one was chosen etc. This was not only unrealistic yet would surely spread the virus. Yes, being able to see is an essential part of life for most but the repercussions would be catastrophic in giving Covid-19 an extra leg up. We just couldn't risk it since health is our paramount concern at all times.

So while we're still sheltering in place, new opportunities have come our way, where we can partner with a local org that offers tents, food, blankets and basic hygienic supplies to the poverty that have just received medical attention. With your donation via our website or on our Facebook page, the moment the donated cash comes in, we'll be shopping for essentials and offering these to the local org, who will immediately hand them to people coming out of hospitals. This will be a fast turnaround and that's why we need your help.

Donating $7.00 : It took God seven days to create Earth. This is a profoundly spiritual number.
Donating $10.00 : The Old Testament (Torah) mentions 10 with multiple references to the number of people to make a prayer congregation, the 10 Commandments etc.
Donating $18.00 : The two Hebrew letters that make up the word 'life' in Hebrew comprises the eighth and 10th letter. 

Choose one of the above that taps into your pay forward soul purpose or choose any other number that resonates with you spiritually. One step forward by paying forward breathes life into our collective feat to give forward to the needy, the hungry and the poverty stricken.

 

Covid-19: The Best & Worst of Humanity

This pandemic has truly magnified the worst and the best of humanity. While first responders have been working around the clock to save lives, rioters have destroyed historic (for better or for worse) statues. As small businesses have struggled to keep their basic financial flow running, wealthy corporations cashed in on government loans not designed for them. As the average Joe and Jane stepped up the plate to volunteer wherever possible or give a few dollars to a charity, the elitist 75 billionaires of the Bay Area hid in their ivory towers, completely mute. While tenants hit the poverty line unable to pay rent, rich landlords filed lawsuits to dismantle the 'pandemic no eviction' rules. As the city supervisors relentlessly fought to help the homeless, lawsuits flooded in to rehouse the homeless 'anywhere but near us.' When many individuals took the stance to shelter in place and keep a masked distance, others selfishly hosted and/or attended large, packed parties and re-spread the virus at a rate of knots. As people kept indoors to keep themselves and others safe from the virus spiking, others chose to join cramped protests at any opportunity. The extremities of both spectrum ends are quite staggering.

How do you fare over the past three months? Can you look back at the past 90+ days and be proud of what you achieved, if or how you helped others? 

We're still in the midst of the pandemic but this divine test period is being closely monitored and everyone is being judged. 

SF CARES has seen the Salvation Army relentlessly handing out food to the homeless, Shanti.org volunteers running shopping errands for people susceptible to the virus, Food Runners completely pivoting their business by producing around 2200 meals a day for the hungry, savvy creatives making masks for Glide workers, food banks inundated with helpers, alongside dozens of other .orgs that just have great hearts. The ones that came forward to support these, and many other philanthropists, have truly shown the best of humanity - a sheer contrast to the mob that are intent on destroying.

There's no such thing as 'never too late' when it comes to putting one foot forward, to pay forward. Please contact your local Salvation Army, Shanti.org, Food Bank, homeless shelter and ask what you can do for them today. Donate food, donate cash, donate your time, chat with a homeless person on the street, sign up to offer phone support for people stuck at home and are just want to talk, rummage through your closet and cupboards and donate clothing or supplies to shelters.

Be kind, let your heart lead you, do something good...and do it today.