SF Smiles is a San Francisco-based non-profit organization that works to provide individuals and families in need with basic necessities by collecting furniture, home essentials, toiletries, clothing, and baby gear from the community and redistributing to those who need them the most. SF Smiles serves homeless and low-income individuals and families, victims of domestic violence, and people with developmental and mental health related disabilities by distributing these much needed items either directly to those in need or to the programs that directly serve them.

But I’ll let Chad Christensen, Founder and Director of SF Smiles, tell you more about the program himself:

Tell me a little about your work and what you do at SF Smiles?

Basically, what I do is pick up donations from people in the community who are getting rid of things. The donors are varied – sometimes it will be a family clearing out items their children have outgrown; offices that are remodeling/relocating/closing that give us furniture, microwaves, miscellaneous supplies; we get leftovers from estate sales; we get furniture from people who are moving or redecorating their homes; you name it. I collect a huge variety of items, have volunteers help me organize them and then use those items to fulfill requests that come in from individuals and families. The referrals to our program primarily come through the staff of other agencies of which the individuals/families are clients. Their social worker will assess their needs and assist them with completing the request form. I fill the requests on a first-come, first-served basis depending on what I have in stock at the time. Items typically go out as quickly as they come in.

Tell me a little about your life and what led to you getting into this kind of work?

I have always been a caregiver, a non-profit worker, a creative person who likes to do things differently than everyone else. And if you ask my wife, I can never pass up a perfectly good, usable item left on the sidewalk. I started collecting odds and ends that I found knowing that SOMEONE needed it and I would quickly find a home for it. Through my old job at a local non-profit agency serving people with disabilities, I always knew of someone in need. When I lost my job a few years ago, I knew I wanted to start something new that would make people smile. We actually had the name before we knew exactly what we were going to do. SF Smiles all started with a group of people brainstorming ways to help the community and has evolved to what it is today – a service which helps people in need access essential living items. We started by networking with a few local agencies whose clients we could help and in the past six months the number of requesting agencies has skyrocketed to over 20. These are 20+ organizations whose clients are in need of home and family essentials.

What is the most rewarding part of your work? What do you enjoy most about it?

The smiles from individuals and families when you show up at their front door with the items they had requested! Many are so overwhelmed with joy and happiness you can tell that it’s now one less thing to worry about! The parents might be single parents or couples who have so many things that they are trying to work out. Being a single parent, going back to school, a new job, an empty home, a not so great past and now they are ready to move forward in their new journey. We are so happy that we can help them worry about one less thing!

What is the most frustrating part of it?

We have grown so fast and have such limited space for storing items. By not having a larger space to store more donations and without a space we cannot promote SF Smiles in a bigger way, we cannot collect all of the donations that get offered to us, which means we can’t yet serve as many families as we want. Many might go weeks without any furniture or household items.

Tell me a little about what other types of things you’re doing for the community?

I’ve always wanted my work to have a larger impact and the way I see it, I want SF Smiles to be a megaphone for the other amazing organizations in SF that the average person may not know about. Through social media, events, donation drives, and simple word of mouth, SF Smiles raises public awareness about the great agencies that we are connected with.

For a while, we ran a program called “Sandwiches & Smiles” which gathered a group of volunteers from Project Insight, the Haight Street Clinic and SF Smiles to make sandwiches and bag lunches for local homeless people.

Sometimes participants from the agencies we serve come and volunteer, helping us sort donations and get things organized.

What’s next for you and SF Smiles?

Next up – we definitely need a space. We are operating out of our garage at the moment, which means we have limited space and also don’t have a public drop-off place for donors or a place that clients can come pick out what they want. We are actively looking for space and once we have a space that we can invite clients to, that donors can drop off donations to, we will be able to cast a wider net to pull in more donations and serve more families.

And – Funding! We are currently volunteer-run and operating on a small budget which covers our basic expenses. We are exploring different funding opportunities to make SF Smiles a robust organization.

Do you know someone who works for the city? Do you or do you know someone who might have free or inexpensive space somewhere for storing donations? Are you a grant writer or do you know any grant writers?

If you have questions, ideas, suggestions or would like to help out-please call Chad at (415) 412-7101 or email me at chad@sfsmiles.org.

If you would like to donate clean and usable furniture, household items, toys, clothing and baby items please visit our website www.sfsmiles.org for a complete list of what we are looking for.

In photo, from left: Chad of SF Smiles and his friend Rita

In between these sessions attendees enjoyed a special lunch outside featuring a lacinato kale salad, a wild rice salad with cranberries and pecans, a jicama mango salad and healthy low fat brownies made with cherries instead of butter! During lunch Jackie Hsieh did a healthy cooking demo featuring her diabetic-friendly eclairs, which amazingly have only 10 grams of carbs and are delicious.

To show our appreciation for their attendance, and for sharing their experience and wisdom with each other,  and in order to encourage them to make their own health and well-being a priority, the Clinic gave each attendee produce from the Tenderloin People’s Garden and a gift bag generously donated by Sephora.

Treat Yourself- St. Anthony celebrates National Women Health Week with a day-long health fair for women.

Women often serve as caregivers for their families, putting the needs of their spouses, partners, children, and parents before their own. As a result, women’s health and well-being becomes secondary. As a community, we have a responsibility to support the important women we know and do everything we can to help them take steps for longer, healthier, happier lives.

On May 7^th , 2013 St. Anthony Medical Clinic is hosting Women’ Health Day to celebrate National Women’s Health Week.  The day will cover women’s breast health, nutrition, physical activity, and emotional health including education and resource building around issues of domestic violence and abuse.

We will collaborate with San Francisco General Hospital’s Mammo Mobile, which will provide screenings, Kaiser Permanente, Women’s Community Clinic and La Casa de las Madres, as well as St. Anthony’s own health care providers to offer a comprehensive program to the women of the Tenderloin.

It can be challenging to get low-income women into health services.  Many barriers delay or prevent accessing care, including linguistic and cultural differences, financial pressures, and the fact that most low-income women’s resources go to providing food and housing for themselves and their families leaving little money or time to devote to their own well-being. Low-income women face the same pressures most women face, but with far fewer resources to manage them.

The theme of the day is ‘Treat Yourself’ that that is that taking care of yourself is important for wellness, but also that caring for your self has additional rewards that ripple out to families and communities.

To make the experience complete, we will offer our attendees some additional gifts.  Sephora has donated make-up, perfume, skin care, and other “treatment” gifts to help us complete our wellness day.  These are items often completely beyond the reach of low income women and so important to women’s self-esteem.  The clinic staff are preparing healthy food from their own “recipe box” to share and printed recipes will be available for our guests.

This year on Valentine’s Day, the Free Clothing Program played host to VET SOS, and by ‘played host,’ I mean they took over our parking lot for the day. We are happy to announce that VET SOS will now be visiting the Free Clothing Program on a regular basis, about three times a year. VET SOS is a volunteer-based project providing free veterinary care for the companion animals of homeless San Franciscans. The project uses a specially outfitted van to provide its outreach and veterinary services in selected areas of San Francisco that are inhabited by homeless individuals with companion animals.

The project visits the Castro/Mission, China Basin, Golden Gate Park, Haight-Ashbury and Bayview-Hunter’s Point neighborhoods on the second Friday of each month. In addition, the project provides its services at San Francisco’s six annual Project Homeless Connect events in the City’s Tenderloin neighborhood, and in Golden Gate Park during Notre Dame de Namur University’s Thanksgiving Day Picnic with the homeless.

The van carries veterinary vaccinations, medications, medical charts, animal food, leashes, collars, halters, and other necessary supplies that are dispensed on site by a volunteer staff that includes one or more veterinarians, one or more vet techs, and an animal assistant. When possible, an animal behaviorist joins this team.

Valentine’s Day was the first time they were using the Free Clothing Program as one of their mobile sites, so we were all a little nervous about how it would go. But according to Bernadette Guirguis, VET SOS Project Assistant, it was the bee’s knees! Though I’m pretty sure they don’t treat bees.

 A total of 36 animals were seen (32 dogs, 3 cats, and a rat) and 2 animals were sent to be spayed/neutered at the San Francisco SPCA! We’re also very pleased to announce that VET SOS will be returning to the Free Clothing Program on May 9^th, as well as again in November.

Donations to VET SOS can be made directly to the Free Clothing Program. Here is what they are specifically in need of (the ones in bold are the highest need): flea treatment k9/feline, heart guard (all sizes), 22g 3/4in needles, allergy pills, shampoos, wet food, muzzles (all sizes), bowls, doggie clothing (all sizes), nail trimmers (non-guillotine), heat sources/heat pads, plastic bags (grocery bags for supplies), non-expired antibiotics. Please note that Vet SOS cannot accept expired medications, expired pet food, or controlled substances, will not accept open bags of pet food, and currently cannot accept donations of LRS or other fluids, any insulin syringes, or IV medications.

 Thank you again to Bernadette and everybody at VET SOS for helping to improve the lives of our clients and the pets they love!

In photo: a VET SOS client with her dog, Precious.

Photo courtesy of Mark Rogers photography.

This last Wednesday, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. St. Anthony’s Dining Room was transformed into a dance studio. That’s right- a dance studio. If you had happened to be passing by the building, you might have heard the rapid squeaks and taps of people’s shoes dancing

At this time every Wednesday, you will find this fun-loving group of people doing something truly spectacular- getting fit together. Some of the members are patrons St. Anthony’s free clinic, and have been diagnosed with diabetes or may are be at serious risk for other ails. Although anyone, guest or not is encouraged to join the class. Fresh fruit is also offered for free as a snack during the workout to encourage healthy eating.

Their fearless leader and teacher, Dexter encourages getting active in any way possible. “Most people think of marathon running when they think of exercise. But exercise is fun, and we prove that every Wednesday.” This fitness group’s activities will range from anything to stretching, power walking, and circuit training. This week the workout theme happened to be Beyonce. So, St. Anthony’s encourages you to join the movement in getting fit, and find ways to “Move Your Body”!

The average American generates about 5 pounds of solid trash a day!   In a year’s time, that equals 1,825 pounds of trash per person.  The population of the United States gets rid of about 210 million tons of junk every year!  Schools, hospitals, businesses and government agencies also produce a lot of garbage.

All of this garbage has to go somewhere, usually a landfill.  Garbage is dumped into a landfill and is then covered with dirt.  The United States and the rest of the world is quickly running out of landfill space. The answer to this landfill shortage is simply for people to compost, recycle and reuse. 

Landfills also cause another problem.  When rain or snow falls on the landfills and then seeps into the garbage, they turn into a poisonous, soupy liquid called leachate.  This leachate sinks into the ground and pollutes the groundwater under the landfill.  It also can leak into streams, lakes and natural wells. If this poisonous liquid gets into our drinking water it is very expensive and difficult to purify the water to get rid of this contaminated substance.

Over the past months St. Anthony’s has composted and recycled on average about 65% of its’ garbage.  With our focused goal  of “0” Waste   in mind we are doing our best to get to over 80%; then hopefully soon after 100 % of our waste/ garbage will be composted, recycled, reused or e-wasted.  The Green Team’s goal of “0” Waste will be challenging but we are determined to get there.

When people think about hunger, they don’t often picture their grandparent.

Nearly three quarters of St. Anthony’s food pantry clients are seniors. Many of them must make the difficult decision between purchasing food and purchasing medicine. And for many, food is medicine.

The next time you are shopping, think of your grandparents and pick up a can to donate to St. Anthony’s.Approximately 25% of San Francisco’s seniors face food insecurity.

We gratefully accept all food pantry donations.  We particularly need donations of proteins such as tuna, chicken, peanut butter, canned fish of any kind, protein shakes,  nuts or any other shelf stable protein.

Donations are accepted at St. Anthony’s Monday-Friday 8:30am-4:00pm @ 150 Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco 94102.

Make a bigger impact.  Add your voice and call upon our policymakers in Sacramento to help us end hunger and promote nutrition and self-sufficiency in California:

I’ve always thought it peculiar how the simplest item can take on meaning beyond its practical use. A diamond ring can represent decades of commitment or a worn stuffed teddy bear can remind one of those precious years of adolescence. But this story revolves around a simple white pair of sneakers, and what they meant to a woman by the name of Mary Helen Douglas.

Mary hails from the town of Petaluma, a land known for its picturesque river, quaint architecture, butter and eggs parade, and famed World’s Ugliest Dog competition. Her parents suffered from addictive illness for the majority of their lives, and thus growing up Mary lacked supervision and support that a parental figure provides for a child. She would often have to find her own food, cook her own meals, and find her way around the town. So at the fledgling age of nineteen, Mary left for San Francisco. There she found a man who supported her, and she had high hopes for a future filled with change and prosperity. Although as she would discover, her plan would not become a reality.

Unable to find work, her bank account eventually dwindled into the red. Along with her husband, she eventually ended up on the streets, living periodically in and out of shelters. At the time they both found escape and numbed themselves through the use of drugs and alcohol. They went on like this for some time. Then, in the winter of 2005, all she loved slipped away from her. In a single week, her husband passed away from heart failure and all of her belongings were stolen at a shelter she was residing at for the week. In addition to all this, she was utterly broke, not even possessing a pair of shoes on her feet to warm her in the customary San Francisco misty cold.

Mary continued to find escape through substances, to numb the gaping holes in her life. She recalled that one night, the drugs had a terrible suicidal effect on her. During a bad trip, she had attempted to throw herself off of a seven story balcony. The sole reason she survived was through a friend’s intervention, yanking her back as she scrambled to throw herself over the side of the railing. This scared her beyond words, for not once had she ever even possessed a suicidal thought. She realized the drugs were changing her, morphing her into a stranger even to herself. She was taken to a doctor, and as he peered at her test results with dismal scrutiny, Mary was convinced of one fact: she would not be alive much longer living like this.

Observing Mary’s current predicament, a friend had told her of a program that could help: St. Anthony’s Free Clothing Program. She was skeptical having been to other assistance programs before, but decided to go anyways, her cold bare feet driving her to walk faster to Mission and 8th. When she entered the Free Clothing Program’s building, she was greeted by a man named Marcellus. His first question was a simple one, “What is your name?” She had participated in many other programs before and gone through information gathering processes almost identical to this one. Although this time she said it was different. Marcellus had locked his gaze with hers, and when he asked what her name was she felt as though he really cared. She was not just another number or random recipient of free goods. She said that even to this day he has never failed to greet her by her name. She was given all the clothing she needed: shirts, sweaters, pants, and socks. But the article of clothing that struck her the most was the pair of sneakers. When she fastened the laces, for the first time in a very long while, she felt her frigid toes started to relax. Walking no longer was a painful task, and strolling down the sidewalk in the shade of the high rises she was humbled by the comfort she had not felt in such a long while. She felt as though something about the program was changing her, if only just a bit. This measly pair of shoes gave her faith that all was not really lost, and for the first time in a very long time, she had hope.

While waiting outside of the Free Clothing Program building one day, a man approached some of the ladies waiting alongside her. He was acting outlandishly, yelling gibberish at some of the women without a discernable cause. She knew that the man was under the influence of drugs. And all of a sudden she saw her future–the drugs and the crazy behaviour that would ensue. This was not the future she wanted at all, and in that moment she found her strength again. She approached the man and in a way that only Mary Helen Douglas could, lectured him, calmed him down, and he eventually apologized to all the women.

Right then she knew that she had to change; that her life was not lost. She was referred to a couple rehabilitation centers by the staff and her road to recovery began. Looking back, those sneakers, given to warm her feet on those chilly nights, incited a change that would end up saving Mary’s life. So perhaps the next time you peer down at your feet, you can remember Mary and how something as simple as an old pair of shoes can mean salvation for another.

Tyler Merkel is a Communications & Outreach intern at St. Anthony Foundation

Nella donates 12 lbs. of produce for Clinic patients

Americorps volunteer Jackie Hsieh teaches a Healthy Cooking class on Tuesday afternoons to St. Anthony Medical Clinic patients who are interested in learning about food and cooking, losing weight, or just getting healthier in general. Jackie gets vegetable donations each Friday from a group of farmers at the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market in the Civic Center (the oldest farmers’ market in San Francisco), which she uses both for her cooking demonstrations and as incentives to give to patients to take home.

This week, attendees of Jackie’s cooking class will receive vegetables from the Tenderloin People’s Garden, a project of Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC). Garden Coordinator Nella says that anyone is welcome to get free produce at the Tenderloin People’s Garden, because it is a garden “of the people, by the people, for the people.” The bounty this week included lacinato kale, collard greens, mustard greens, red Swiss chard, and parsley. Altogether it was 12 pounds of fresh produce harvested in about 20 minutes. Nella says people don’t believe her when she tells them they can harvest 200 pounds of produce, but the 12 pounds donated for Clinic patients hardly made a dent in the beds of greens.

Each of these crops is a nutritional powerhouse, especially the collard greens, which Nella says is the number one crop for nutrient value. Any of them can be sautéed with some onions, garlic and olive oil, but she also recommends tossing the chopped mustard greens into some broth for a great vegetable soup.

Thank you to the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market, to the Tenderloin People’s Garden, and to all of the other groups who contribute to making healthy living a real possibility for our patients.

Barry has over twenty years of nonprofit management experience. He has been St. Anthony’s Director of Development for the past eight years. He holds a Ph.D. in social ethics from the University of Chicago, taught at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and Santa Clara University, and has contributed to the work of the Franciscans on the west coast in a variety of capacities.

When asked what he’s excited about in assuming these responsibilities, Barry said that he believes “St . Anthony’s is poised to enter a new and dynamic phase of its service to the community: we’re building a new Dining Room; we’re reaching out to new generations of San Franciscans who want to be involved in our work; and we’re focusing on new metrics to measure the life-changing outcomes for the guests we serve.”