A Boobs4Food Thanksgiving with Glide Memorial Church

image courtesy of www.glide.org

image courtesy of www.glide.org

Glide Memorial Breakfast Service: A Meal of Nourishment, Warmth and Care from the Community

Have you ever had the desire to volunteer during Thanksgiving for a good cause but found out that every organization you called was already booked? Well, we know what that’s like from our own experience in the past when we dialed organization after organization only to be denied as they were all booked to capacity. Well, since the inception of Boobs4Food this year, we were determined not to let another Thanksgiving holiday go by where our desire to volunteer would be denied.  Our November B4F Event was only possible thanks to Kat. Kat was strategic enough this year to partner up with Glide Memorial during the 1^st week of November to solidify a few spots for the Thanksgiving 2009 weekend (if we had waited even a day later, we wouldn’t have been so lucky!).

Glide Memorial has been an essential community resource for faith, food, meals, support and service to the neighborhoods around the San Francisco Bay Area for over 50 years. For the month of November, we not only supported Food Bank NYC during our travels, but here at home we finally got our long-awaited opportunity to donate our time and efforts to Glide Memorial Church at their Saturday Morning Breakfast service.

Our morning at Glide was yet another eye-opening experience as we were able to witness the well calculated breakfast operation of how to feed hundreds of senior citizens, families, adults and children within a 90 minute meal service. James, the Kitchen Manager, with his boisterous personality and friendly nature, organized the kitchen troops and lead us to a successful breakfast service. James spent the first 30 minutes before meal service to direct all of us volunteers towards various stations. The debrief was necessary to maximize our ability to provide as many breakfasts as possible in transitioning Glide Memorial patrons in and out seamlessly. We were sent to the food service line to portion bread and orange wedges onto individual trays and also the preparation kitchen where we cleaned out turkeys (necks, giblets & even innards!) and portioned out bread in bins for upcoming meal services.

Once the clock hit 7:30am, the doors flew open and senior citizens were the first to enter for the hot breakfast of the day: grits, ham, hard-boiled eggs, angel food cake, wheat toast, orange wedges and a selection of beverages. One of the interesting discoveries we witnessed was that it takes 13 volunteers to prepare each individual tray from the first station where a spoon and napkin goes down on an empty tray to the final station where a volunteer kindly hands the patron a hot prepared breakfast tray and greets with a smile, “Welcome to Glide!”.  This is a well-oiled operation with James cheering on the volunteers to crank the prepared meal trays out as swiftly as possible. By 8:00am, the dining room was filled to capacity and remained at capacity until the last guest arrived at 9:00am.

Throughout the two hours of meal service, strangers worked together to ensure each Glide Memorial patron could enjoy a hot healthy breakfast especially in the cold November chill of San Francisco. Everyone who volunteered, did what they could to guarantee the hungry patrons could get a meal and drink of proper nourishment, warmth and care from the community. We, Boobs4Food, have no doubt that we’ll return to Glide Memorial soon enough – as we’ll be back on Christmas Eve to serve Prime Rib Dinner.

Whether the day is a Saturday in November or a holiday such as Christmas Eve – no person should ever go hungry. We here at Team Boobs4Food will continue our efforts in sharing our time and passion to fight hunger and hope you’ll join us at our next event!

A million & one thanks to James & the Glide Memorial staff for letting Boobs4Food lend a hand and fight hunger in SF this Thanksgiving season.

Also deserving many thanks from Boobs4Food is Mr. @Linecook of Linecook415 & Nopa Restaurant in SF, for waking up at the butt crack of dawn to volunteer with us. @Linecook’s expertise in the kitchen was put to good use, as we got to break down turkeys in the prep kitchen with the Glide staff.

For more information on Glide Memorial, please visit www.glide.org or follow Glide on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GlideSF.

Happy Thanksgiving 2009 from all of us at Boobs4Food!

-Team Boobs4Food