The Justice Education program, in collaboration with the Volunteer Program, facilitates volunteer service opportunities enriched with staff led orientations and reflections.

Since 1950 St. Anthony Foundation has provided direct services to our brothers and sisters in need in the Tenderloin.  In the early 1980’s, we witnessed the deepening of poverty for the people that we served, as evidenced by the growing phenomenon of homelessness in our city. Our Franciscan sponsors challenged us to find new ways of serving the “poorest of the poor” by beginning to address the structural roots of poverty through advocacy and education. St. Anthony Foundation’s Social Justice Education program is major focus of that response.

St. Anthony Foundation has been blessed since its beginnings with generous donors and volunteers who are true partners in our work.  Each year thousands of people donate time and money to our institution.  The Justice Education Program is a fundamental way that we invite our donors and volunteers into deeper relationship to the Foundation and to the people we serve. It is our belief that this deeper relationship will open the opportunity for more and more people to connect with those who are poor as our brothers and sisters in community.  And in that connection our eyes will be opened to see structural causes of poverty, so that together with our brothers and sisters who are poor, we will be able to create a more just society, that supports the dignity of each human person and values the common good.

The Justice Education Program consists of four key components: Orientation, Service, Solidarity and Reflection.  All who participate in our service programs (individual volunteers, groups, immersion participants, interns and service-learners) are all offered opportunities to participate in and experience all four components of the program. 

Orientation

The orientation offers volunteers an Introducing the values of St. Anthony Foundation that guide how we serve.  It works to help the volunteer be comfortable in our neighborhood and at SAF and

Service

In direct service volunteers have the opportunity to help people.  Service broadens the participation of the wider community in the work of the St. Anthony Foundation, and the Tenderloin community.  And in giving of ourselves we experience the reciprocity of the volunteering, i.e. that those we serve have much to offer us.

Solidarity

In the act of service there is still the imbalance of the person who “has” sharing with those who “have not”.  The solidarity experience offers our volunteers and our guests an opportunity to be together as equals.

Reflection

Through the first three components of the program volunteers meet many people and experience many things.  Reflection provides volunteers a space to discuss these experiences with a SAF staff person and with other volunteers.  Reflection also provides a space to discuss the root causes of poverty that our guests experience and to discuss ways volunteers can continue to serve our guests through direct service and through advocacy for social change “towards creating a more just society in which all persons flourish.”