What’s cooking this week at St. Anthony Dining Room!

Monday, February 8 - Pork and Green Chilie Stew
A spicy stew of simmered pork and green chilies. Served over rice.

Tuesday, February 9 - Turkey Cassoulet
A blend of beans simmered with turkey and herbs. Served over rice.

Wednesday, February 10 - Chef’s Choice

Thursday, February 11 - Chicken Apricot
Chicken cooked with apricot cilantro and paprika. Served over rice.

Friday, February 12 - Black Bean Burritos
Flour tortilla burritos served over Spanish rice with salsa.

Saturday, February 13 - Pasta Bolognese
Pasta topped with a ground beef and tomato sauce sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.

Sunday, February 14 - Cupid’s Turkey and Corn Chowder
A Boston favorite! Turkey simmered with corn, peppers and potatoes.

Check back for weekly installments of On The Menu!

Several weeks ago, St. Anthony’s hosted one of its longtime partner schools, St. Ignatius Prep, for a group volunteer day, aka Justice Education day. When they came, they brought along some friends from “Down Under” with them! Students from Loreto and Riverview High Schools in Sydney, Australia traveled the Pacific to spend 2 weeks in San Francisco during their winter break and we were lucky enough to be able to spend a day introducing them to the Tenderloin. Chris, one of the adult leaders for the Aussies was kind enough to send us this picture with a promise that they’ll be back next year!

Written by Vincent, St. Mary’s College “Jan Term” intern who took advantage of opportunities to serve at St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic and St. Anthony Dining Room, while also participating in activities that bring to light some of the factors that perpetuate poverty:

Learning about the Tenderloin Neighborhood began my first day. It is home to more than18,00 people according to census data now a decade old. This number of course only includes those with roofs over their heads. These people live in the 25-30 blocks which comprise the neighborhood. It is the poorest in the city and the second most populous after Chinatown. In contrast, it is bordered by Nob Hill, the Civic Center, and the designer stores of Union Square.

For lunch the first day we stood in line with the guests at the Dining Room. I felt more welcomed by the others in line than by those serving food, for whom the numbers of people in line I’m sure get overwhelming. (The Dining Room currently serves 2600 meals per day.) I was sure to keep that in mind the following day when my role was as server, instead of servee. Acknowledging people with a smile is core to the Franciscans (who began the Dining Room and work at St. Boniface Church next door) and their focus on how each person is served. It became the most clear to me that this human decency was nothing short of miraculous when we exited the building after several hours of serving and busing trays. The line stretched down the long inside corridor and wrapped around the corner of the building to the halfway point of the block. Read the rest of this entry »

Attending a St. Anthony’s advocacy meeting for the first means being bombarded by acronyms: SSI, IHSS, Calworks. It means facing some disheartening news: increased muni prices for seniors and the disabled, increased co-pays for medi-cal, and grant reductions proposed in the Senate budget hearing. The list could go on.

But an advocacy meeting also means taking all the bad news while still seeing the good news. Here’s some good news: all the letters and emails opposing the IHSS (in-home senior service) cuts were presented in the Senate budget hearing. Here’s some more: St. Anthony guests are signing a petition opposing the increased muni fares and other guests may potentially find part-time work as 2010 census employees. Good news does not reduce bad news, but understanding that it’s not all bad news can help from becoming completely overwhelmed at all the work ahead. But good news does not mean relaxing, it means plowing ahead so that there’s more good news.

When Practice Fusion called to see what they could do for St. Anthony’s, I wasn’t sure who they were. A restaurant serving California cuisine? A martial arts school? A nuclear research facility?

All wrong. Practice Fusion hosts an electronic health record system (a medical database). It’s web-based, and licensing, hosting, and training are all included. An ad-bedecked version is free. An ad-less version comes with a reasonable fee. (If you don’t believe it, look for their website where they explain their secret.)

They called on a short lead, which often doesn’t work for St. Anthony’s, especially at holiday time. But as it happened, we had a gap they were just in time to handle. We started off with a tour of our new Free Medical Clinic, then crossed the street to the volunteer room to work on last minute preparations our service staff were glad to turn over to volunteers.

St. Anthony volunteer projects are usually booked months ahead, but it’s always worth a call. You never know.  Our new adult group coordinator is Dolores Gould: 415-592-2704. Or click over to Volunteer and fill out a group form for something in the future.

The folks from 365 Days of Giving had this to say about their experience donating clothing to St. Anthony’s:

Today we loaded up 14 giant bags holding 400 pounds of clothes for men, women and children that were donated by friends and the kind people of Discovery Kingdom into the back of Kim’s truck. We met Parker, the manager of the Clothing Program from St. Anthony Foundation in San Francisco. He was so thankful for the donation. He shared with us that the Foundation serves 120 people per day and the doors are open Monday-Friday. People with dirty, stained, tattered and torn clothes come here to get one new outfit every 4 weeks. Their mission is to show these people respect and dignity by offering them some “retail therapy” and giving them an opportunity to pick out clean, fashionable clothes that fit them properly. As we were leaving they had already begun going through our donations and separating them for the men, women and children that would be “shopping” at the Foundation.

As Andy and I drove away we talked about our experience at the Foundation. We had a renewed appreciation for all that we have been given. We felt a great sense of gratitude.

Have you ever considered not being able to purchase clothes for yourself?

St. Anthony Foundation provides free used clothing for people in need in addition to providing other services such as hot meals, job and computer training and patient visits. “St. Anthony Foundation’s mission is to feed, heal, shelter, clothe, and lift the spirits of those in need, and to create a society in which all people flourish.” They have been doing this for almost 6 decades providing life-sustaining programs that serve San Francisco’s least regarded population: seniors, veterans, the mentally and addictively ill, recent immigrants, the working poor, and the homeless.

Did you know that COBRA health insurance subsidies and emergency Unemployment Compensation are set to expire on February 28, 2010?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, California had a 12.4 % unemployment rate in December 2009.  That means that there are currently 2,254,381 unemployed people in our state.  Around 150,000 of them stand to lose their unemployment benefits and nearly 1 million stand to lose their COBRA health insurance subsidies at the end of this month.

As California Healthline reported in December, the average COBRA premium is $1,107 a month in California, about $720 of which is covered by the federal subsidy.  The average unemployment compensation benefit in California amounts to $1,349 per month.

Our friends at NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby have a nifty form on their website that makes it easy to advocate for an extension to Unemployment benefits and COBRA subsidies.  Visit NETWORK’s website to find out more.

What’s cooking this week at St. Anthony Dining Room!

Monday, February 1 - Beef Bourguignon
Diced beef cooked with red wine and mushrooms (No Alcohol)

Tuesday, February 2 - Punxutawney Pasta
Pasta with Chicken in a light cream sauce. Phil the Groundhog’s favorite!

Wednesday, February 3 - BBQ Short Ribs
Succulent short ribs braised to perfection and smothered in barbecue sauce

Thursday, February 4 - Sausages with Polenta
Sausage’s donated by Aidells Sausage Company in San Leandro

Friday, February 5 - Winter Vegetable Stew
Winter vegetables stewed in tomato sauce

Saturday, February 6 - Barked Chicken with Peanut Sauce
Served with rice

Sunday, February 7 - Biscuits, Sausage and Country Gravy
Biscuits served with sausage and a rich gravy

Check back for weekly installments of On The Menu!

Ed. Note: This week’s entry was written by Domanique, a student at St. Mary’s College participating in a January Term internship with St. Anthony Foundation. Today is her last day with us but from the sounds of it, she’ll be back!

St. Anthony Foundation has been a new experience for me. Although it wasn’t my first time working with the homeless, this encounter was different and exciting. I have been able to understand people and have learned to not look on the surface of the individual, but to dig deep into the soul of each person I met. I have made myself available to work outside of my comfort zone and embraced the tasks that I thought would be hard to overcome, but that I found quite intriguing and overwhelming. I have humbled myself not only to those that I have met but also those whom I have known for years. This experience helped me to get a better relationship with God and my understanding of Matthew 25:36 (Naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me…) I feel truly blessed to have had this opportunity and I hate that I have to go. I had such a great experience with St. Anthony’s, that I want to continue to volunteer in my free time! See you all soon!

Photography Justin Sullivan spent time last week doing a photo essay on Joe, a longtime guest and friend of St. Anthony Dining Room. Click here to check it out.