THE PEOPLE’S PANTRY
The People’s Pantry is the name for our collective food programs aimed at supporting food access in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our coalition currently services 500+ households in the San Francisco Bay Area weekly and 90+ farmworker households in Napa County on a monthly basis.
Our Community Fridge, Grocery Delivery, Hot Meal and Farmworker programs are organized independently but collectively service community members who experience a myriad of structural barriers that include the lack of consistent food access, monolingual services, access to water, electricity, or refrigeration. We intentionally organize with an approach that humanizes our recipients, with consideration for culturally relevant food and access needs. Our coalition relies on direct donations to support our programming. Please see below to learn more about each food program:
FREE COMMUNITY FRIDGE
MMC is partnering with SF Community Fridge, a network of free food fridges in San Francisco that was inspired by @townfridge & @iohnyc. Currently, the fridge MMC has partnered to maintain is located at Mom Chairs (2390 Mission St, SF CA 94110) and is stocked and cleaned regularly by community volunteers.
The Community Fridge is open to the public from 3-5 pm every Sunday. To volunteer please visit here.
FARMWORKER FUND
We believe no food work would be possible without farmworkers! In turn our Farmworker Fund was organized to redistribute at minimum 25% of all donations as a means to provide groceries to local farmworkers once a month.
As a San Francisco based mutual aid group, we are intimately aware that the local food and wine industry our city is known for, would not be possible without the labor of Napa County farmworkers who produce the wine Northern California is known for both locally, and world wide. That’s why we have partnered with the Napa County Hispanic Network and Gonzalez Vineyard Management to provide 90-125 farmworker households with culturally relevant groceries, pet food and resources on a monthly basis.
GROCERY DELIVERY
Every Sunday coalition Community Partners - VisibiliT, Chavalos de Aquí y Allá, Lala Speech Therapy, CHANGE SSF , CALMA & SF Community Fridge and local volunteers deliver groceries to 250+ households. Many community partners deliver to households within their existing networks and navigate weekly community engagement efforts to ensure community members food needs are met.
We use donated funds to purchase all grocery items - produce, dairy, eggs, and dry goods from Arcadio’s Produce Inc, a local Latinx produce wholesale company located in San Francisco’s Bayview District. Thanks to Arcadio’s Produce, we have been able to consistently provide culturally relevant staples in our weekly boxes.
HOT MEALS
We redistribute donations to local BIPOC and or immigrant owned small businesses in the Bay Area as a means to provide hot meals to our unhoused neighbors and community members with limited access to refrigeration or cooking access. Our small business partners in San Francisco are El Faro SOMA, Wild Pepper, Eterna Primavera Bakery, Peaches Patties and our East Bay partners are Nostos Café and La Guerrera’s Kitchen.
Hot meals are made accessible across the Bay Area by coalition volunteers and by our elder organizers at our Community Free Fridge location.
