Elderly people hunched over their carts. Moms clutched children’s hands or pushed babies in strollers. Scores of people waited patiently in the hot sun, their weary eyes peering over their masks.
These are the faces of hunger and poverty in one of the world’s richest cities, and they stretched in a long line down Seneca Avenue and around the corner. They were seeking a precious commodity: a plastic bag bulging with healthy food.
Nearly eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s no sign the economic crisis and the desperation in its wake are anywhere near letting up. The problem, though, is that not enough San Franciscans are answering the call for help.
The San Francisco Marin-Food Bank has opened 29 emergency pop-up food pantries around the city to respond to the pandemic — including this one at James Denman Middle School in the Excelsior district every Wednesday. Coupled with its regular work packing food in its giant warehouse and delivering groceries to homebound seniors, the huge undertaking requires an eye-popping 2,000 volunteers per week.
But by early October, half of its volunteer slots went unfilled — a phenomenon nearly unheard of before the pandemic when scoring volunteer slots, especially for those that accept kids, was like winning a lottery ticket.
Those eager to help when the crisis hit in the spring aren’t signing up anymore. Chalk it up to parents stuck home all day to help their children distance-learn. And some workplaces opening up, requiring employees’ time.
But mostly, food bank staffs say, people are just tired of this whole miserable mess. Answering the call of duty in March felt heroic. Now, maybe, it just feels exhausting.
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They’re calling it “pandemic fatigue,” and they’re pleading with people to buck up and sign up to help. Otherwise, they may have to cancel some emergency programs. Already they’ve had to make some shifts longer and hire temporary workers, which cuts into the budget for staff salaries and food.
“We desperately need volunteers to maintain these programs and continue to serve all our participants,” said Cody Jang, senior community engagement manager.
Like any good multitasker, I visited Denman Middle School on Wednesday to report this column and volunteer. I’ve helped out in the warehouse on Pennsylvania Avenue many times with my kids, but confess I hadn’t volunteered since the start of the pandemic with too many other demands on my time.
That was a mistake. In this year in which it feels like our world is spinning off its axis and there’s so little we can control, taking concrete actions to help feels sanity-restoring. And almost meditative.
Pick up a white plastic bag. Walk up one of several long aisles with huge cardboard boxes filled with food. Place the instructed number of each product inside the bag — four pears, two carrots, two onions, a bunch of bananas, a carton of eggs and so on. Take it to the front. Tie the bag. Repeat. Other volunteers give the bags to those slowly making their way through the huge line.
How to help
The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank needs volunteers every day of the week and invites kids as young as four to help on certain days. For information about volunteer opportunities and to sign up, visit www.sfmfoodbank.org.
By the end of the day, volunteers will have packed 800 bags, and 800 hungry families will have their groceries for the week. An easy success. So unusual these days.
The need for help is huge. The food bank serves up to 60,000 families every week now in San Francisco and Marin, about twice as many as before the pandemic. It used to deliver food to just a few hundred homebound people, and now that number is 12,000. The outdoor pop-up pantries are new, designed for social distancing and further honed for specific neighborhoods.
The new Tenderloin pop-up pantry, for example, largely serves people who live in tents, shelters and single-room-occupancy hotels without private kitchens. So cans of tuna, jars of peanut butter and loaves of bread go over better than whole chickens and bags of rice that must be cooked.
Ellen Garcia, pop-up program manager, said large squash is often a no-go because it’s too heavy, and many people don’t know what to do with it. She stood next to a huge box of squash, which wasn’t added to the bags because they’d be too hard to carry.
“I’m trying to push them anyway because they’re an amazing source of nutrition,” she said with a laugh. “I get really excited talking to people about squash.”
Joking around helps ease the sadness at seeing the lines get longer and longer — and the offers of help grow fewer.
“There are a lot of families who need it who didn’t need it before,” Garcia said. “And the bulk of the heavy lifting is done by volunteers.”
That’s heavy lifting in the metaphorical and physical sense. Just ask Dave Gilliam, 64, who works four shifts a week. He huffed and puffed as he lugged heavy boxes into place on the volunteer assembly line.
“It gets me out of the house,” explained the retired computer programmer. “It got real boring sitting at home so I thought I might as well come out and do some good.”
He said it’s gotten kind of lonely lately on the volunteer front.
“There are fewer and fewer people coming out,” he said, noting pandemic fatigue is real. “People are getting tired of this. It’s been a long stretch now. So I’m the one who gets to lift the 80-pound bags of onions, but I don’t have to worry about going to the gym afterwards.”
Lissette Leon, 18, was there for her first volunteer shift with the food bank and had more aspirational reasons for signing up.
“To save our country,” the college student said matter of factly. “I’m feeling the need to contribute back. I’m planning on making this a permanent kind of thing.”
I am too. And I hope you consider it also. People like Vicky Furlong need us.
The 60-year-old was there for just the second time — to pick up food. She lives nearby, kept seeing the long line and finally acknowledged to herself she needs the help. She worked for 35 years as a medical assistant, but lives on disability now after losing all feeling in her hands and feet because of diabetes.
After she pays rent, she’s left with just $300 a month for food, medicine and everything else. Her son helps her out, but she said she hates asking him.
“This will be good for the week — definitely,” she said of her big bag of food.
She walked back home, but more people kept taking her place in line. I left two hours after arriving. The line was just as long as when I began.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf Instagram: @heatherknightsf
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