We are thrilled to welcome Allyson Halpern as GLIDE’s new Chief Advancement Officer.
Allyson has spent her career in nonprofit management and philanthropy, specializing in mission-driven organizations that are starting up and/or at a critical stage of growth.
Most recently she worked at Life Learning Academy (LLA) as its first Chief Advancement Officer, building the systems and capacity for major philanthropic growth.
Prior to LLA, she spent seven years at 826 Valencia, where she helped the organization expand to two additional sites, triple its contributed income, amass a significant financial reserve, and double its student reach.
Allyson was raised in Massachusetts, and she has a special love for autumn leaves and Maine lobstah. When not working, you can find her solving NYT word puzzles on her phone, loving on her black Lab Ozzy, or hanging with her husband Dan and wondering how their two daughters grew up so fast.
Please join us in welcoming Allyson to the team!
#GlideForward
Toys fill up the Sanctuary pews.
The winter holiday season means sharing quality time with friends, handing out gifts, singing songs of joy, and lighting candles. It also means collecting, packing, and putting approximately 2,400 toys into nearly 400 bags for distribution to underprivileged children throughout the Tenderloin!
Every year, GLIDE puts out the call for toys and gifts for those families facing difficult times. And each time, you deliver! Thanks to the volunteers, our board of directors, corporate donors, and to the more than 1,000 of you who purchased a toy off our Amazon toy-drive registry, we managed to fill our Sanctuary pews with gifts galore.
GLIDE Board member Crickett Brown Glad volunteers to package toys.
Of course, funding the operations of a Toy Bag Giveaway does not come for free. Our Board of Directors stepped in when it needed to and thanks to a personal donation by Board Member Crickett Brown Glad, we could get these toys to the children in need.
“This is such a wonderful event because we’re making a difference in so many children’s lives,” said Crickett. “Serving 500+ kids here in the Tenderloin, it’s an extraordinary opportunity to give of your heart and give a little bit of your pocketbook.”
GLIDE President & CEO, Dr. Gina Fromer
For GLIDE’s new President & CEO, Dr. Gina Fromer, our Toy Bag-Giveaway embodies the spirit of giving forward. “I almost came to tears when I saw the amazing love shared by our community to the thousands of families we serve,” said Gina. “I remember getting toys at Christmas for my kids and the way it made me feel as a mother. The outpouring of Glide’s spirit is infectious. We wish all families a happy holiday season.”
GLIDE’s Toy Bag Giveaway made 2,400 toys available to kids across the Tenderloin.
GLIDE Board member and “Mayor of the Tenderloin” Del Seymour volunteered to fill bags. For Del, the necessity of this year’s contribution cannot be understated. “This annual event that GLIDE has been doing takes on even greater importance this time around because of today’s economic situation. We’re seeing an increase in the amount of children in need of gifts, especially due to a rise in immigration of families coming into San Francisco from other countries.”
GLIDE Staff Board member Chris Cimino (on the right) and Jake Pszonowsky fill bags with toys.
Maya, of Salesforce, volunteers to place toys in bags in Glide Memorial Sanctuary.
Glide arranged for volunteers (including a team from Kaiser Permanente) to come in and place toys in the bags seated in the church pews. For Salesforce volunteer Maya, this was a chance to make the end of the year holidays more meaningful while confronting the reality some families face in uncertain times.
“I think what’s special about Glide’s Toy Give Away is the chance to help others, especially around the holidays. I know we all can recognize our own privilege and I think it’s a real nice thing to be able to give back to the community, and make sure that as many families as possible feel supported and appreciated,” said Maya. “Every kid just wants to wake up with presents during the holidays. I’m glad to be able to help facilitate that experience.”
Salesforce volunteer team packages toys inside Glide Memorial Sanctuary.
A superfecta of 2023 end-of-year holiday events saw GLIDE’s presence illuminate across the City, including participation in lighting ceremonies at Golden Gate Park, Boeddeker Park, in the Castro and at Chase Stadium.
GLIDE’s Minister of Celebration Marvin K. White speaks about the Kinara, or candle holder (in Swahili) that honors African American culture in Golden Gate Park.
Golden Gate Park Candle Lighting
Fighting systemic injustices also means celebrating our hard-fought victories. GLIDE does this in many ways but our glow also radiates towards the end of the year when we join hands with our brothers and sisters in lighting candles, singing songs of merriment, and spreading holiday joy throughout San Francisco.
Celebrating 350 years since John McLaren planted the Cyprus tree at the entrance to Golden Gate Park, city officials gathered on December 7th to light Hanukkah candles, the Kinara and the Christmas Tree.
Mayor London Breed, CA Senator Scott Weiner and Minister Marvin K White were some of the individuals who spoke at the event. You can watch Minister Marvin’s speech about Kwanza by watching the video above. The event was covered by KRON4.
Mayor London Breed, Senator Scott Weiner, State Assemblymember Matt Haney and SF Supervisor Dean Preston help light the tree in Boedekker Park.
Tenderloin Candle Lighting at Boeddeker Park
On Friday, December 15th, the Tenderloin community celebrated the holidays with a tree lighting celebration in Boeddeker Park. Erik Arguello, of the Center for Social Justice helped to plan the event with community partners. Two groups of GLIDE’s ever popular dance group, Glidettes performed, singing festive songs.
The event included activities for kids, a visit from Santa and Miss Claus, words from city officials and performances by Tenderloin community groups. The event was covered by KTVU.
Glidettes performing at Boeddeker Park.Erik Arguello, Joanne Adams and Assessor Joaquin Torres were in attendance.
The Glide Pride Team goes caroling through the Castro.
Lighting up the Castro with Ring-a-Ding-Ding!
On Saturday, December 16th the Glide Pride team went caroling through the Castro. Singing Christmas carols with the justice-centered lyrics crafted by Janice Mirikitani and the Rev. Cecil Williams, the congregational life group spread joy and invited all passing by to join us at Glide Memorial Church for our Christmas Eve (9 and 11 am) and Christmas Day Celebrations (10 am).
Glide Ensemble performing at Joy to the City at Chase Center.
Light and Gospel at the Chase Center
On Sunday, December 17th the Glide Ensemble performed at the Joy to the City Event co-hosted by Code Tenderloin and Assemblymember Matt Haney. The event provided 3,000 children with Christmas toys, books, lunch and groceries.
The gospel-filled singing of the Glide Ensemble helped to lift the spirits of all who gathered and helped Tenderloin and South of Market families learn more about the unconditional love and radical welcome at Glide. You can listen to The Glide Ensemble’s performance by watching the videos below.
On December 21, GLIDE will collect toys, packing them into bags and distributing them to children (up to 11 years) who are enrolled in GLIDE programs.
We are now collecting toys through our Amazon toy-drive registry. Please help us make this year’s Toy Wonderland a memorable one for the children by donating today!
Interesting in making a bulk donation of toys to bring holiday magic to hundreds of children and their families?
Contact Anya Hill at ahill@glide.org or call 415-674-6148.
Thanksgiving was back indoors at GLIDE and our Daily Free Meals Program delivered the goods by anticipating the full rush of hungry diners and serving 2,400 + meals, along with 240 meals delivered by our Harm Reduction team.
Thanks to our many volunteers (including an appearance by San Francisco motorcycle club Kings of Cali) and staff, hundreds of turkeys and hams were carved and prepared for consumption, including more than 1,300 pounds of potatoes, nearly 1,000 pounds of fresh vegetables, several hundred gallons of stuffing, all to the delight of our Glide community.
Glide Minister of Celebration, Marvin K. White hosted a Thanksgiving Celebration service, featuring not only music from the GLIDE Ensemble and Change Band but appearances by San Francisco Mayor London Breed and California Assemblyman Matt Haney.
Special volunteer shout-outs to SFPD Chief Bill Scott, SFFD Chief Jeanine Nicholson, and San Francisco Accessor-Recorder Joaquin Torres. In addition to members of local groups, Both Sides of the Conversation and U.N.I.T.Y. and the rest of our 200+ volunteers!
“Today, I see a bright, shining star,” said Mayor Breed. “The new president & CEO, Dr. Gina Fromer. I’ve worked with Dr. Fromer over the years, and I can tell you she brings so much happiness and joy to her work. I know that all of the great work she did at the San Francisco Children’s Council she will also bring to Glide.”
“Today is about gratitude. I woke up this morning and I said to myself that I am so grateful for family, for my job, for my faith, for my church, and for my children, and for all the people working on behalf of the city of San Francisco,” said Dr. Gina Fromer, president & CEO of Glide.”
Dr. Fromer reminded us that Thanksgiving is not just one day. It’s every day. GLIDE gives every day back to our community. “Volunteers, serving food every day, our Walk-In-Center, delivering bags of groceries to those in need, GLIDE is not just a building but is about taking our goods and services to the people.”
Assemblyman Matt Haney took to the pulpit and spoke to the history of GLIDE and its relationship to the city. “GLIDE is the most essential, iconic institution in San Francisco when it comes to representing our values,” said Haney in front of the GLIDE faithful.
“Thanksgiving is the only holiday we have dedicated to gratitude. Living in the Tenderloin is living in the most diverse neighborhoods in the world. And the folks who live here overwhelmingly treat each other with friendship, kindness, and compassion. We need GLIDE more than ever.”
A community of families with children, students, and seniors who cannot afford the Bay Area’s high rents are living in RVs near Lake Merced. This community is facing the threat of 4-hour parking restrictions, which will require them to leave work or school to regularly move their vehicles or face ticketing and towing. Implementing the new parking restrictions without anywhere else to go will push families deeper into instability and homelessness.
…Many of the families living in their RVs are struggling to make ends meet as they work low-paying jobs. There are also students and seniors living in RVs who cannot afford rent anywhere else……
GLIDE’s Center for Social Justice is one of the founding members of the End Poverty Tows Coalition, which advocates with and for people living in their vehicles and low-income people who cannot afford to lose their vehicles to tows. The End Poverty Tows Coalition recently came together to stand alongside these families and urge the City to reject these 4-hour parking restrictions that would be devastating for these already marginalized families. We have been pushing for the City to fulfill its promises to these families to open up a safe parking site for their RVs and help them access affordable housing.
As part of this organizing effort, GLIDE arranged a press conference on October 24th,2023 alongside the families who live in their RVs, as well as other community organizations. RV residents and supporting community members and organizations shared powerfully about the need for a safe parking site and permanent affordable housing.
ABC7 News coverage of families living in RVs along San Francisco’s Winston Drive
Unfortunately, the SFMTA Board of Directors did approve the 4-hour parking restrictions in September, and they are scheduled to take effect on December 19. GLIDE has been organizing with the families to elevate their stories and raise public awareness.
So many of the families living in their RVs are struggling to make ends meet as they work low-paying jobs. There are also students and seniors living in RVs who cannot afford rent anywhere else.
At GLIDE, we firmly believe in our collective responsibility and capacity to open pathways to stability, rather than place barriers and increased hardships for families and students working to make a life in San Francisco. If you would like to support our efforts, you can quickly send an email to City leadership.
Reverend Cecil Williams has etched his name into history as a ceaseless champion for the poor and marginalized.
Cecil has been the unwavering leader of GLIDE, and its thanks to his leadership that our organization is a nationally recognized champion of social justice, supporting individuals in poverty and crisis, and bringing about positive change.
Cecil’s message of unconditional love and radical inclusivity have never been more relevant. He created a haven for the homeless, for the oppressed, and for those cast out of other communities when no one else was. The injustices he fought require constant vigilance and collective action, and we can take inspiration from his extraordinary life and acts of service.
After arriving at GLIDE in 1963, he built the dwindling congregation of a few dozen people to more than 10,000 parishioners. He worked tirelessly for six decades until stepping away earlier this year at the age of 93.
During his tenure, he shared the pulpit with world leaders and world activists. He fought for LGBTQIA+ rights long before it became politically or socially acceptable. In the image of Martin Luther King, Cecil has been a beacon of hope and an agent of change in our society when we needed it most.
No better words describe Cecil’s leadership and vision than his own. “For decades, I have raised my voice against injustice and have shaken my fist at death. Sometimes I sound like a broken, soulful record that goes ‘round and ‘round singing and shouting through the urban wilderness, ‘Choose life. You have the power. Act like you are alive.’”
Please help us get Cecil the national recognition he deserves for his many years of service and leadership to GLIDE.
Doors opened Sunday, October 15, to a first-of-its-kind historical exhibit encapsulating 60 years of GLIDE history under the leadership of Rev. Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani.
Bringing together news clippings, archival photos and curatorial descriptions, the exhibit offers a sweeping overview of GLIDE’s progressive and inclusive stances since 1963. A joint project hosted by GLIDE and the Tenderloin Museum, visitors can learn about everything from GLIDE’s take on the crack epidemic in the 1980s to its ground-breaking advocacy for LGBTQ inclusion.
The exhibit opened on a day of record-breaking attendance of Sunday Celebration. Many churchgoers perused the exhibit, lingering over photos from Cecil and Jan’s wedding in 1982 as well as a wall of celebrity pictures depicting all the public figures who have visited GLIDE over the years.
One of the visitors was Cecil himself, who admired the display and then joined Dr. Gina Fromer, GLIDE’s new President and CEO, for a few words before they attended celebration together.
The exhibit is free and open to the public in GLIDE’s Creative Space, next to the lobby, where visitors, volunteers, and donors can easily stop by. The collaborative effort was made possible by the foresight of long-time GLIDE archivist, Marilyn Kincaid, who lovingly curated more than 50 boxes of archival material that formed the basis of the exhibit. Many thanks to Director of Public Affairs Francesca Delgado-Jones for curating. More information about GLIDE’s history can be found here.
How to see it
Event: 60 years of GLIDE historical exhibit
Cost: Free and open to the public
Location: Creative Space 330 Ellis Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
Sixty years ago, a young Black minister named Cecil Williams arrived at GLIDE, determined to breathe life into a dying church. Cecil’s arrival served as an awakening for GLIDE, inspired by his spiritual training in Black liberation theology and his lived experience growing up in the Jim Crow South.
He saw the connection between systems of poverty and injustice outside GLIDE’s doors with his prophetic vision to build a community rooted in unconditional love and radical inclusivity.
Within weeks of his arrival, Cecil transformed the dwindling congregation of a few dozen people into a rollicking, vibrant, diverse faith community of over 10,000 congregants.
He also laid the groundwork for a critical system of services and programs to meet the needs of the City’s most underserved people through the emergence of the GLIDE Foundation.
Since those days in the early 1960s, GLIDE has continued to grow and thrive, serving as a beacon of hope and a refuge for many of the City’s most vulnerable residents.
As we face the challenge of growing economic inequality and work to repair our safety net in a post pandemic world, Cecil’s vision is as important today as it was 60 years ago.
A critical component of this vision is modernizing GLIDE’s facilities and operations. In September of 2023, we kicked off our Building Modernization Campaign by celebrating a $1M investment by Assemblymember Matt Haney and the State of California. This investment will go towards four capital projects for Glide Memorial Church (GMC):
Modernizing an essential elevator that connects the Church with street level access and our senior/disabled dining area
Restoring the stained glass, revitalizing an iconic visual element of the building that is listed on the US National Park Service of Historic Places
Replacing and upgrading the electrical, lighting, controls, and sound system to modernize our weekly Celebrations
Making critical investments in fire and life safety systems for the 100-year-old facility
We are deeply grateful to Assemblymember Haney and the State of California for making the inaugural investment in our Building Modernization campaign. In doing so, Assemblymember Haney is honoring the value and worth of the vision Cecil laid out 60 years ago.
We are equally excited for our new President & CEO, Dr. Gina Fromer, to lead this campaign as we prepare to embark on the next 60 years of GLIDE’s legacy in San Francisco and beyond.
Stay tuned through our website and social channels for updates on the progress of GLIDE Forward and our Building Modernization campaign.
More than 450 churchgoers on Sunday — record attendance since before the pandemic — got to hear from GLIDE’s new President and CEO, Dr. Gina Fromer.
Dr. Fromer shared the story of how she came to know GLIDE’s power as a young mother of three small boys. It was Thanksgiving, she remembered, and “I struggled with poverty in a community with minimal resources for families.”
A sixth-generation San Franciscan, she took three different buses to get to the Tenderloin for a turkey and extra groceries so her family could enjoy the holiday. Even though she felt some shame in asking for help, she was touched by the warm welcome and came back for the next two years.
“Glide was important to me as I was working my way out of poverty,” she told the congregation.
Four decades later, Dr. Fromer is an accomplished leader of influential nonprofits in the Bay Area. She arrives at GLIDE during an important turning point as Co-Founder Rev. Cecil Williams marks his 60th anniversary with the organization he built.
“Thank you to Cecil and Jan[ice Mirikitani] for laying the foundation for this amazing Glide movement over the past 60 years,” she said, adding, “My career path has led me to this very moment in time, and to this critical city anchor institution. … Responding to community is at the core of my passion for people and San Francisco.”
Dr. Fromer said she’s excited about the “three doors” that GLIDE holds open to meet individuals and families wherever they are in their lives. The Center for Social Justice is at the front lines of critical policy work in San Francisco that has implications statewide and nationally. Robust programs provide everything from meals, housing help and healthcare to those who need it. And the church provides a warm entry point for community members, advocates and clients.
“We want to disrupt the pipelines to poverty,” she said, “and create pathways to healing spiritually, mentally and physically.”
