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

Monday September 6th – Hot Dogs
Served with potato salad and coleslaw

Tuesday September 7th – Pork Sausage Cassoulet
St. Anthony’s Dining Room turns Iron Chef as we churn out dishes made from seasonal ingredients

Wednesday, September 8th – Pork Sausage Cassoulet
Cooked in a light cream and cheese sauce

Thursday, September 9th – Pad Indian Chicken Curry
Lightly spiced chicken in a tomato and yogurt sauce

Friday, September 10th – Pad Indian Chicken Curry
Served with summer vegetables and parmesan cheese and herbs

Saturday, September 11th – Orange & Chinese Black Bean Chicken
With a rice and vegetable salad

Sunday, September 12th – Pad Indian Chicken Curry
St. Anthony’s Dining Room turns Iron Chef as we churn out dishes made from seasonal ingredients

Check back for weekly installments of On The Menu!

I work in a cubicle.  Instead of walls, I am separated from my co-workers by partitions covered with thumbtack-able fabric.  Each of my co-workers has a different strategy for making their cubicle look less sterile and more like “home”.  My favorite corner of my cubicle is this poster, which gives me a daily reminder of one of my favorite Martin Luther King Jr. quotes, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice.”

Tomorrow, August 28, 2010, is the 47th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  There will be a variety of groups in Washington DC tomorrow who are using the anniversary of the march and of the famous “I Have A Dream” speech to promote their own agendas.  Instead of getting sucked in to the controversy surrounding this year’s anniversary, I’ve decided to reflect on the words of Dr. King and to think about how his words inspire me in my work here at St. Anthony Foundation.

Dr. King spoke about service, and the following quote reminds me of our wonderful and generous volunteers and interns:

“Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

It was exactly the type of audacity that Dr. King describes below that led to the founding of our free Dining Room almost 60 years ago.

“I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.”

As St. Anthony Foundation’s Advocacy Coordinator, I am especially inspired by Dr. King’s words about taking difficult stands on important issues:

“Many people fear nothing more terribly than to take a position which stands out sharply and clearly from the prevailing opinion. The tendency of most is to adopt a view that is so ambiguous that it will include everything and so popular that it will include everybody. Not a few men who cherish lofty and noble ideals hide them under a bushel for fear of being called different.”

I’ll end this post with a call to action!  Dr. King said that, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”  I hope that the 47th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom will inspire people to stop being silent and to speak out about what matters to them.  Whether you “speak out” by volunteering your time to help someone in need, making a donation to a cause you believe in, contacting an elected official about an issue that matters to you, or talking to your children about poverty and justice, I hope that you’ll take a moment this weekend to interrupt the silence with your powerful voice!

After the devastation that 1989 earthquake had on the Bay Bridge, rather than simply retrofit the bridge it was decided that an entirely new structure would be needed in order to protect against future quakes. On Friday, August 20th, the staff at the Tenderloin Tech Lab took a boat tour of the new Bay Bridge currently under construction. Cal Trans, the government agency responsible for overseeing the development of the bridge, hosted the half day tour.

For those who have not yet seen the sections of the new bridge that have been put in place, they are a sight to see. The ‘skyway’, a section of the bridge which extends from the Oakland mudflats, will connect to the Self-Anchored Suspension Span on the north side of Yerba Buena Island. The skyway itself is comprised of two separate highways, one northbound and one southbound, that together contain over 200 million tons of steel. It is quite an experience to witness such a remarkable thing in the process of it’s creation. The completed bridge will have two 15.5 foot pedestrian bike lanes, a new and welcome upgrade, that will finally open up movement between the East side of San Francisco and the greater Bay Area. Although the bridge is still a few years away from completion, it is an exciting moment to be able to watch the development of such an integral component of the San Francisco Bay Area.

At St. Anthony Free Clothing Program, we always appreciate the donors who bring us clothing, especially from a distance — the North Bay, the East Bay, the Peninsula, and the South Bay. Once in a while we get donations by mail from as far away as the East coast. But a donor set a new record last week when he sent us clothes from Seoul, South Korea! Thanks for thinking of us and our guests!

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

Monday August 23th – Pork Sausage Cassoulet
Served with pistou and white beans

Tuesday August 24th – Chef’s Choice
St. Anthony’s Dining Room turns Iron Chef as we churn out dishes made from seasonal ingredients

Wednesday August 25th Turkey & Vegetable Casserole
Cooked in a light cream and cheese sauce

Thursday August 26th Pad Indian Chicken Curry
Lightly spiced chicken in a tomato and yogurt sauce

Friday August 27th Chicken Sausage Pasta
Served with summer vegetables and parmesan cheese and herbs

Sunday August 28th Orange & Chinese Black Bean Chicken
With a rice and vegetable salad

Tuesday August 29th – Chef’s Choice
St. Anthony’s Dining Room turns Iron Chef as we churn out dishes made from seasonal ingredients

Check back for weekly installments of On The Menu!

On Wednesday August 11th, State Legislators & other politicians in Sacramento met with everyday people to discuss alternative ways to balance the CA budget with out cutting money from vital social programs. Residents at Father Alfred Center, St. Anthony’s inpatient drug and alcohol rehabilitation program, residents went there with the Jusice Education, Volunteer and Advocacy program and The Health and Human Services Network to show the face of those in treatment.

HHS Came to the talks with three stated goals.
• “To Invest in and protect the health and human services vital to California’s economy and families.”
• “To champion alternatives to dismantling our health care and human services including targeted state revenues and federal recovery funds.”
• And finally, “To reform and re-invent the states broken budget process.”

Father Alfred Center Residents who attended spoke on a number of issues related to these goals.

For example, California currently imposes a lifetime ban on food stamps for individuals who are convicted of drug related felonies (even those in recovery). One resident who spoke at the event told me, “Food Stamps help Stimulate the economy among other things. By keeping them from those seeking treatment, the economy is denied that stimulation effect.”

Other ideas proposed were a nickel tax on all alcoholic beverages sold in CA, and a tax on imported oil.

When I asked her to comment Colleen Rivecca of St. Anthony Foundation’s Jusice Education, Volunteer and Advocacy program told me:

“One of the budget balancing strategies in the Governor’s Budget Proposal is to cut the benefit levels for people receiving SSI/SSP grants. SSI/SSP recipients are low-income blind, elderly and disabled people, and they are ineligible for Food Stamps. People receiving SSI/SSP have already received 3 grant level reductions within the past year. The guys talked about the growing numbers of seniors and people with disabilities that they see every day while working in at St. Anthony Dining Room – they said that these people are already struggling to make ends meet, and a further reduction in their benefits would make it even more difficult for them to survive.”

A lot of good ideas were exchanged at the meeting, and as always Father Alfred Center Residents and St Anthony Foundation was there to do their part.

According to a UCSF study, obesity rates have dropped in Caucasian and Asian children and leveled out for Hispanic/Latino children for the first time in 30 years. Though this may point out successes in recent public health campaigns aimed at reaching youth it also highlights the fact that campaigns are not reaching all children: obesity rates in African American and Native American children continue to rise.

The study states that 20 percent of California schoolchildren were obese and 3.6 percent were severely obese as of 2008. Severely obese children are at high risk of experiencing life-threatening health complications such as diabetes and hypertension.

At St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic we now have an obesity treatment and management program for our pediatric patients and their families in response to the growing number of overweight children in our community. Diet and nutrition are crucial in healthy childhood development; limited access to nutritious food and poor education on how to make healthy food choices leave many in our community at a disadvantage.

Clinicians here at St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic have begun focusing care on children who qualify as overweight and obese in order to medically manage their health and weight-loss plans. We recognize that children are impacted by the health of their family members, thus families of overweight children are also enrolled in the obesity management program. We believe treating families holistically so that all who are involved in a child’s life receive the tools necessary to make healthy lifestyle choices, such as nutrition education and weight management education, is vital to successful weight management for our low income, uninsured pediatric patients.

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

Monday, August 23: Pork Sausage Cassoulet
Tuesday, August 24: Chefs Choice
Wednesday, August 25: Turkey & Vegetable Casserole
Thursday, August 26: Indian Chicken Curry
Friday, August 27: Chicken Sausage Pasta
Saturday, August 28: Orange & Chinese Black Bean Chicken
Sunday, August 29: Chefs Choice

Check back for weekly installments of On The Menu!

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

Sunday August 8th Pasta Carbonara
With bacon, peas, & egg

Monday August 9th Beef Lasagna
A beef ragu layered with noodles & cheese

Tuesday August 10th Turkey Tacos
Served with red mole, cheese, cilantro, rice and beans

Wednesday August 11th Vegetable Pot Pie
Seasonal vegetables in a rich and thick broth topped with a crisp pastry crust

Thursday August 12th Lobster Croquettes
Served over dirty rice with remoulade

Saturday August 13th Pad Sae Ew
Thai style noodle dish with sliced pork, egg, and broccoli with a sweet soy sauce

Sunday August 14th Macaroni & Cheese
Elbow macaroni in a rich and creamy cheese sauce

Check back for weekly installments of On The Menu!

Asthma in the Tenderloin
The Tenderloin has the highest citywide rate for ambulatory hospitalizations associated with COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and the second highest rate for asthma. According to a 2007 UCLA Health Policy Research Brief, one in six of California’s 2.8 million residents with active asthma live below poverty level. In addition to having poorer overall health, low-income residents also miss more school and work because of asthma, visit the emergency department for asthma care more often, and experience more frequent symptoms.

“Tenderloin residents live in old, poorly maintained buildings whose dust, mold, and other environmental factors dramatically increase asthma incidents.” noted St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic Director, Dr. Ana Valdés. “We try to address those factors through education, active medical care, and asthma management techniques.”

St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic
Established in 1956, the St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic is the first Free Medical Clinic in the United States. The clinic provides 12,000 patient care visits annually, nearly 3,000 of which are chronic care visits, Asthmatic patient account for about 9% of total visits.