by
Dawn, Dede and Lisa
We three Food Runners volunteers, Dede Tisone, Dawn Daro and Lisa Moore-Long meet every
Saturday at 9:00 am at the loading dock of Whole Foods at 450 Rhode Island. The first order of business is to check the
bread bin. Here we receive boxes of bread, cakes, cookies and canned items that
we load that into the two cars. Then we head into the produce area to box up
grocery carts of leftover grapes, containers of cut fruit, peppers and
melons.
We roll everything down
the ramp on carts to our cars and head to the deli for sandwiches, soups, and
salads and on to dairy for bottles and cartons of milk, cream eggs, butter and
yogurt. We load all the dairy, deli and frozen food into the two cars.
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| Lisa, Dede and Dawn all loaded up at Whole Foods |
But we
aren’t done yet. We have a second
pick up at Kara’s Cupcakes main bakery at 3rd and 23rd Street. We usually receive anywhere from 4 -20 boxes of cupcakes.
These are the all-time favorite of everyone at the shelters.
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| Lisa collecting cupcakes at Kara's |
With our pick ups complete, Lisa heads to the
St Francis Lutheran Church on Church and Market across from the Safeway. When she arrives, she is greeted by
volunteers who are always very happy to see her and help her unload the car. After doing this run for a number of
years Lisa has gotten to know the people on the receiving end well and they
have become friends.
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| The weekly welcome at St. Francis Lutheran Church |
We, Dawn and Dede, deliver to City Team, a nondenominational
non-profit with a medical clinic and clothing closet that serves the poor and
the homeless in San Francisco providing dinner to men, women and children Tuesday-Friday
and an “All You Can Eat” lunch on Saturdays. There are usually a few guys
hanging around and that is a good thing because if the door is closed, a bell
has to be rung that is above the gate and out of the reach of these ladies. Soon
the door opens and the real “first” team arrives to unload the car. This too is a good thing, because the
boxes of bananas can be really heavy.
They don’t let us lift a thing, insisting that we stay where we
are. In less than 3 minutes the
whole car is emptied and with many a “God Bless you” we are on our way. The
three of us have been doing this run for five years. Dede drives across town, Dawn drives from Berkeley, and Lisa
from Foster City just to be able to go on this gratifying mission every
Saturday morning.
