Be a Part of the Miracle as we unveil plans for The New St. Anthony’s Dining Room: For more information on our move and upcoming ground-breaking for our new Dining Room, tune into our press conference at 12 noon on February 1st with Mayor Ed Lee and President of the San Francisco Giants Larry Baer. If you miss it, you can always find the latest news by clicking on our Facebook page, Blog, or Twitter feed.

Just click here, click “like,” and you’ve helped feed 2 warm meals to hungry San Franciscans. Already like our page? Tell a friend and help us meet our $5000 goal. It’s the easiest two meals you’ll ever cook!

When St. Anthony Medical Clinic patients attend the Walking Group, the Clinic’s community exercise program, ten times, St. Anthony patients will receive a gift card and a 20% discount on walking shoes to encourage them to continue their commitment to a healthy lifestyle. Originally established for low-income diabetic patients, the Walking Group has expanded to include all other low-income patients who want to reap the benefits of regular exercise.

For several years Sports Basement has been a valiant supporter of the St. Anthony Medical Clinic Walking Group. The Walking Group offers clinic patients access to a supportive community exercise experience.

When you check out the 20% off sale for your own health, be sure to thank them for donating to St. Anthony’s.

On this special day, the space will become a canvass to express your sentiments about what our Dining Room means to you. We invite everyone to help us bid farewell. Paint the walls, play music, contribute a non-perishable note or memento to our time capsule, even do a little minor demolition and take a small piece of the Dining Room home with you.

St. Anthony’s has stood firm as a safe place to fall during turbulent times. Our Dining Room has survived seven recessions, remained steadfastly on the right side of history during the civil rights era and the AIDS epidemic, and managed to stay open for service during the 1989 earthquake.

Fr. Alfred Boeddeker, the founder of St. Anthony Foundation, once said “I see God as one act, loving like the sun always shining.” Please join us on February 25th to shine one last time and say goodbye to this sacred space.

Program:
11am – 2pm
11am: Open house to say goodbye
12pm – 2pm: Entertainment, speakers, and open house

Toward the end of the day’s Dining Room service, an older man with a long grey goatee and a large eagle belt buckle approached Charles Sommer, our Dining Room Manager.  Pulling a $100 bill from his pocket, he asked Charles if the money could go toward repairing our well-loved and well-worn piano.  A guest for many years, the man said he’d always loved hearing the music when he came in for a warm meal and a seat at the table.  Halfway to the door, he stopped and turned.

“You know” he said to Charles, “I wouldn’t be here without you guys.”

St. Anthony's Dining Room circa 1956

The Last Dinner at St. Anthony’s marks the end of an era and a new beginning. We will serve the last meal in our original Dining Room on February 1st, 2012. For the first time in over a hundred years, the poor and hungry in San Francisco will no longer line the streets at Golden Gate and Jones. On this day, we gather together to honor the last meal served of 38 million, and the final moment of over 2 million volunteer hours, in a labor of love that has defined compassion and hope for San Franciscans.

This is an historic occasion for St. Anthony’s and for the city of St. Francis. St. Anthony’s Dining Room has been a refuge for the city’s most vulnerable citizens, and a portal of generosity to alleviate their struggles. The legacy of generosity on the corner of Golden Gate and Jones dates back to the chaotic aftermath of the 1906 earthquake, when Franciscan Friars first responded by passing out lunch bags from St. Boniface church. This work continued through the Great Depression and World War II. The call to feed the hungry inspired the transformation of an old auto-body shop on 45 Jones Street into the St. Anthony’s Dining Room, a civic anchor in San Francisco that has stood the test of time longer than any institution of its kind.

On October 4th, 1950, we opened St. Anthony’s Dining Room, expecting to serve 150 meals. 400 meals later, we closed our doors for the day. Since then, and for more than 61 years and 38 million meals, St. Anthony’s has been known as the Miracle on Jones Street. Now we have great plans to build The New St. Anthony’s Dining Room. The original Dining Room will come down and we hope to break ground for the new building this summer. The public phase of our campaign for The New Dining Room begins on this special day when the last tray is served in this grand old space.

Be a part of this miracle today. Join us to commemorate this historic event and pay homage to a space deemed sacred ground for its profound impact on the city of San Francisco.  We anticipate Mayor Ed Lee will serve the final tray for this historic event.

Beginning on February 2nd, St. Anthony’s will serve meals from an interim Dining Room at 150 Golden Gate Avenue while Nibbi Brothers General Contractors begins to demolish the building and construct The New St. Anthony’s Dining Room.

At St. Anthony’s, we link people and create relationships to make something bigger than the sum of its parts. This is the legacy of our founder, Father Alfred Boeddeker. The strength of his compassion for the poor allowed him to see through the disparate elements of poverty to the potential that could be harnessed.

There was a deep-seated practicality in this Franciscan vision. This is how Fr. Alfred transformed an old auto repair shop into an open space of community, hope and possibility. This is the foundation that has served our community for more than 60 years.
Compassion at St. Anthony’s continues to be practical and therefore responsive. Recently, what looked like limitless economic growth suddenly shifted gears. We have all felt the pinch of scarcity and new limitations, but those hit hardest by the downturn have been those whose resources were already limited. Today as social services contract, these are the people watching their last line of defense disappear. In the Tenderloin we witness daily the human toll taken by social and economic policies.

In the coming months, St. Anthony’s is undertaking another significant investment in our community. In response to increases across all of our programs, we are building a new Dining Room which will allow us to serve thousands more each year. The impact will be felt in the Bay Area for at least another 60 years. We are investing in the bonds that join us together and remind us that we are not alone. Together, we can muster the resources. Together, we carry the responsibility.

Removing barriers and building community gives our work an impact greater than the visible outcomes. As we build connections across economic divisions, we make the entire community stronger. Uniting compassion, community, and practical experience unleashes potential that can’t be measured.

Thank you for building this community with us.

Sincerely,
Shari

Shari Roeseler,
Executive Director

For more information about St. Anthony’s New Dining Room Campaign, please click here.

We Recognize that each person is worthy and valued simply for being.

“Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.”
― Rumi

“Sit, be still, and listen,
because you’re drunk
and we’re at
the edge of the roof.”
― Rumi

I believe life is an obstacle course.  We run through it to the best of our ability, stumble, fall, get up and try again.  Early on (if we’re lucky) we learn that this process is not going to be easy.  Life is supposed to be hard.  It’s supposed to challenge us to grow beyond our limitations.  When one challenge is bested, another will come soon after.

Each of us is the product of our creator, endowed with self-awareness, and set loose into the world to do what we will.  We are the children of the stars, given life so that the stars can see themselves through our eyes.  This divine spark that causes us to live and breathe causes our hearts to beat in our chests.  It drives us to overcome, or to be overcome by life’s obstacles.  Many of us spend the majority of our lives caught between the two extremes, but it’s the times when we are at our lowest, when we feel beaten up and beaten down; when we feel the crushing weight of a thousand bad choices threatening to choke the life out of us; & when we have nowhere else to turn that we need a helping hand.  We need somebody willing to offer us a kind word, a hot meal, a chance at salvation, & a chance to help ourselves.

Only through struggle do we learn.  Only through pain do we grow.  Every new obstacle in our path is an opportunity to overcome, an opportunity grow, an opportunity to be better today than we were yesterday.  Life is hard.  We’re all in it together, because together we overcome.  We recognize that each person is worthy and valued simply for being.

Football legend Jerry Rice huddles with E.D. Shari Roeseler and Fr. John Hardin

Players from the University of Illinois Fighting Illini joined the front lines in the fight against hunger at St. Anthony’s on Friday, December 30th, serving nearly 3,000 meals – generously provided by the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl – to some of San Francisco’s neediest individuals and families. One of the best moments of the day was also the least planned; players erupted in a freestyle jam session with a piano virtuoso who regularly eats in our Dining Room. This performance has become a viral sensation on YouTube as it makes it way around the world. We knew the Illini would be great athletes; little did we know they would be such incredible performers, too! Check out their performance here.

Congratulations to the Fighting Illini, who went on to beat UCLA 20-14 in a hard-fought game at AT&T Park.

A group begins filling bags at 10:00 Saturday morning. (Tomorrow.) You have until at least 11:00 to bring a few more socks in and push us over the line on your way to pick up the groceries or get that last gift or catch a plane to visit family. We won’t get more than we need. At St. Anthony’s, we just can’t have too many socks.

Have a wonderful holiday. And thank you for all you do for the most vulnerable among us.