The Bold Italic’s 2020 Awards

This article is part of The Bold Italic’s 2020 Awards, which celebrate the Bay Area’s small businesses and local residents who have hustled and shown creativity throughout 2020. See all the award winners here.

This year has brought incredible challenges across our community. Thousands of people have lost their jobs. Many have contracted Covid-19. Essential workers have had to put themselves at risk day in and day out. The year also brought a wave of civil unrest over racial injustice and police brutality, where protesters found themselves in harm’s way as they took a stand.

But the Bay Area’s hard work, compassion, and solidarity are strong. And for each of these causes, we’ve seen a slew of nonprofit groups step up to meet the needs of the community. Often, they’ve done the work where the government has failed to step up.

While a slew of new and amazing groups — like Town Fridge and SF New Deal — popped up, the ultimate winner of the “Most Impactful Community Organization in the Bay Area” in The Bold Italic’s 2020 awards goes to the SF-Marin Food Bank, which has truly been the backbone of making sure people in need of food get what they need during these hard times.

Operating since 1987, the SF-Marin Food Bank has been actively ending hunger all across San Francisco and Marin through their relentless food distribution efforts. They offer everything from college campus pantries to farm-to-family programs, and the needs they address are diverse, wide-ranging, and all-inclusive.

Now, with the current Covid-19 crisis, the Bay Area stalwart has been bolstering its distribution efforts even more than before. They actively serve 8,000 seniors per week, and a whopping 55,000 households receive groceries from them on a weekly basis. The need for their services is higher than ever, and yet they are operating with a 50% reduction in volunteers and not enough money to keep up.

Whether it’s by making a direct donation or volunteering, there are plenty of ways to support the SF-Marin Food Bank and make sure your neighbors don’t go hungry.

We caught up with Keely Hopkins, communications manager for the SF-Marin Food Bank, to ask her about their year. See below for that interview and to see the other nominees for Most Impactful Community Organization in the Bay Area.

TBI: How have you managed to stay afloat this year?
Keely Hopkins:
The Food Bank is now serving 55,000 households per week — nearly double the number we served pre-pandemic. To meet this tremendous need and ensure our participants did not lose access to food when many of our neighborhood pantries had to temporarily close for a variety of safety reasons we opened 29 emergency pop-up pantries throughout San Francisco and Marin. We would not have been able to scale up so quickly to meet this increased need without the outpouring of support and generosity of volunteers and donors.

How are you holding up now, heading into another month of shelter-in-place?
The Food Bank is an essential service, and we remain open. We are continuing with the strict safety measures we’ve had since the start of the pandemic in order to keep our staff, participants, and volunteers safe. We know that our services are more important now than ever. We have already seen an uptick in enrollment following the latest wave of business closures and with pandemic unemployment benefits are set to expire at the end of the year and anticipate even more people turning to us for support.

What are your hopes for 2021?
While we are hopeful about a post-pandemic future in 2021, we know many in our community are still struggling and will be for some time. 2020 brought an inspiring level of generosity and community support for the work we do, we hope as we move into next year, the community will continue to support Food Banks in any way they can.

We are also hopeful that Congress will pass a new Covid relief package that prioritizes hunger relief and helps support the families who have been hardest hit by this pandemic.

How can people help support your organization?
For those who are healthy and feel comfortable coming out, we continue to need volunteers. It now takes 2,000 volunteers a week — twice the number of pre-pandemic volunteers — to run our programs. And for those who are financially able, we greatly appreciate any monetary donations. For every dollar donated we are able to purchase enough food for two meals for a family in need. You can visit our website to volunteer or donate. And thank you to everyone who is able to help.

Other nominees for the Best Community Organization of the Bay

1. SF New Deal

Launched in March of 2020 as a Covid-19 response effort — and because government resources didn’t sufficiently address the needs of the community — the SF New Deal represents a new, contemporary approach to solving food insecurity. The model: Raise funds to give to restaurants that are suffering to keep people employed to make meals for food-insecure San Franciscans. To do this, they’ve partnered with multiple community organizations and restaurants in the wake of the pandemic, and since it began, has served a whopping 1 million meals to those in need.

Its director of service operations, Jacob Bindman, says that their “hope for 2021 is that our community will continue to use its collective impact to center those closest to harm, create new programs providing financial relief for small businesses, and forge new and deeper relationships with community leaders.” A great way to support them and their mission is by donating or volunteering. Those who’d like to partner with them can sign up here.

2. Town Fridge

Town Fridge took the Bay Area by storm in July when random fridges began mysteriously popping up on lawns and street corners in Oakland. Full of free food, the organization is a mutual aid effort that has received donations ranging from PPE to fresh, packaged food for local communities. They’ve been receiving overwhelming support, and their fridges can be found anywhere from West Oakland to Fruitvale.

The way it works is that, through sign-up sheets, any resident in Oakland can agree to be a “fridge host.” Then, passersby can drop off sealed food and unopened supplies as they come and go. In recent months, the Town Fridge Network has also inspired mutual aid branches in San Francisco — it’s evident they’re inspiring communities all across the Bay Area, and that they’re likely going to continue growing.

3. People’s Breakfast Oakland

A grassroots-led, Black socialist political organization, People’s Breakfast Oakland serves as an essential resource to East Bay’s houseless community. Founded by dedicated organizers Delency Parham and Blake Simons, People’s Breakfast addresses Oakland’s inequities head-on. A great way to support them is by donating to their Patreon or to their ongoing relief efforts.

Aside from providing essential resources to Oakland residents, People’s Breakfast has also been educating communities through online workshops and discussions. At one point, they even had a pop-up Covid-19 testing site that was set up in partnership with Black doctors and Black Lyft drivers. From teaching listeners about environmental racism to hosting tent drives and providing Covid testing, People’s Breakfast makes a huge impact on the East Bay daily.

4. Anti Police-Terror Project

A Black-led, multiracial, and intergenerational coalition, the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) seeks to eradicate police terror in communities of color. The organization recently spearheaded the cutting-edge “MH First” program, which calls upon mental health professionals instead of the police during psychiatric emergencies.

Their ongoing campaign, which seeks to defund the Oakland Police Department, is just one of many programs that seek to abolish police violence. Other campaigns include the Black New Deal and Oakland Police Reform. From Oakland to Sacramento, APTP is both a dedicated and wide-reaching organization that demands city officials address years of discrimination—and understand how physical and economic hardship in the Black community is a byproduct of racism.

For those who want to show support and get involved, it’s best to either make a donation or join them at the next virtual community meeting.

Sign up for The Bold Italic newsletter to get the best of the Bay Area in your inbox every week.