Dear Martin’s family,
On September 22nd, in addition to our usual quart of soup, fruit, bread and eggs, we gave out close to 300 beautifully decorated cupcakes, handmade by our homebound volunteers to celebrate Martin’s 50th Anniversary!
Each guest was told that these treats were made, with love, especially for them. The majority of them received their bags with their usual level of gratitude for a freshly made meal, unmoved by the landmark they represented. Several of them, however, were clearly astonished to know that a constantly changing parade of volunteers had been serving free food to anyone crossing our threshold for a full 50 years!
Needless to say, there have been a multitude of changes in the course of those years, not the least of which was the move from Bryant St, in 1986, to our current Potrero location. Though we miss the many beloved volunteers who have moved on in one form or another we are deeply grateful for the continuous arrival of equally beloved new faces and new hands.
This past year and a half, it goes without saying, has been the most consistently challenging and wrought the most drastic changes. Somehow, we have survived it all and in the coming months we will begin to make small adjustments in our operations with the broad goal of safely providing more hospitality for our guests.
It has been your support, whether by making beautifully decorated cupcakes and pies, through financial donations or just by checking up on us, that has allowed our small crew to continue to feed our big Martin’s family. The need for our services may grow in the near future as the frequency of evictions increases and the supportive government programs that were in place during the worst of the pandemic are cut back or eliminated. But we are ready.
We will be serving special holiday meals this year, as we did last year, in takeout-only containers. But we will be soliciting your assistance and contributions to truly bring that 50 years of love to each and every guest no matter what the future brings.
Thank you so much,
The pandemic crew
