communications – Page 8 – GLIDE – San Francisco: serving the people of the Tenderloin and San Francisco since 1963

On Tuesday December 10th, GLIDE’s Center for Social Justice (CSJ) and its coalition partners successfully urged the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to overturn the RV overnight parking ban passed by the SFMTA Board of Directors in October. Heartfelt community voices led to the unjust RV ban being overturned in a 7-3 vote! Thank you GLIDE community!

With 90% of unsheltered families living in vehicles and the family shelter waitlist being 530 families-long, taking family’s RV dwellings, towing them, and forcing them into temporary shelter would be a heartless move. That’s why dozens of San Francisans, including many GLIDE staffers and community members, took the mic to share their heartfelt stories with supervisors. The supervisors were blown away by our arguments!

Gabriel Medina from the La Raza Community Resource Center, speaking for the End Poverty Tows Coalition GLIDE helps lead, said that of the families living in RVs who were pushed out of Winston Drive due to parking restrictions, “Less than half of these families were eventually housed. Those who were housed were only able to get housing because of sustained advocacy and time.”

He described a family of four who the End Poverty Tows Coalition worked with who were forced to live in their RV when the breadwinner lost his job during the pandemic. The family was then displaced from Winston Drive and Zoo Road before eventually being housed due to GLIDE and the Coalition’s advocacy. “I cried a lot when the city asked us to leave,” he quoted the mom of the family. “We weren’t asking for anything for free, just a safe place to live that we could afford.”

David Elliot Lewis, a co-chair of the Tenderloin People’s Congress, pointed out that affluent neighbors are just uncomfortable with the sight of people struggling with poverty, and want to push them out of sight. He added, “Banning RVs does not end homelessness, it just creates more human misery.”

Sarah Miles, a nurse volunteer with UCSF’s Roving Community Health Initiative, contributed to the discussion, “The health of people living in RVs is significantly better than the health of people living in the streets or in shelters. RVs help people hold onto their medications, and provide stability and safety for women and children living in RVs.”

Rebecca Jackson, Co-Chair of Women’s Housing Coalition, added, “As a mother who experienced homelessness with children, my vehicle was the only safe space for us to sleep… If we’re going to sweep people away, we must have a place for them to go.”

Lukas Illa from Coalition on Homelessness had a real mic drop moment when they declared, “Purposeful disinvestment in infrastructure is a way to justify criminalization of poverty…. This trickles down into attitudes of housed San Fanciscans, giving them license to intimidate some of our most vulnerable residents.” They shared stories of people’s children being threatened and their mirrors knocked off cars.

CSJ’s Eleana Binder speaking to the SF Board of Supervisors on RV ban

GLIDE’s own Eleana Binder, Policy Manager in the Center for Social Justice, delivered the rebuttal for the End Poverty Tows Coalition at the end of the hearing and made the point that “Rather than implementing a punitive policy before we have sufficient services, we should devote time and funding to establishing safe parking sites and getting people in RVs assessed for and connected to appropriate housing.”

A sanctuary city is not a city where we threaten immigrant families and make them feel like they don’t belong, simply because they are too poor to afford better housing than an RV. We even heard first-hand during the public comment from an RV dweller whose mirrors and windows were broken, a heartbreaking tale.

We’re so grateful our GLIDE community advocates for people to escape the cycle of poverty and have safe places to stay. People deserve every tool at their disposal to break the cycle of poverty.

We won a major victory this month, but we still need to keep fighting for shelter for homeless families; we’d love for you to join our letter-writing about that here.

State Attorney General Rob Bonta visited GLIDE to share tips and resources on how to donate safely and avoid scams while giving this holiday season. After the press conference, AG Bonta and twenty members of his staff volunteered sorting and unpacking toys for our Annual Toy Giveaway. (We are still requesting toy donations on our Amazon registry through 12/18 if you want to make a child smile this holiday!)

Rob Bonta is the first person of Filipino descent and the second Asian-American to occupy the Attorney General’s office. While introducing him, our President and CEO Dr. Gina Fromer noted, “his accomplishments include banning private prisons in California– that’s a big deal!”

And earlier this month, AG Bonta cautioned federal officials against renewing contracts — or signing new ones — with privately operated immigration detention centers in California.

That is just one example of the wide portfolio of justice work the Attorney General’s office conducts. The Attorney General also has primary regulatory oversight of charities and the professional fundraisers who solicit on their behalf, and investigates charities that misuse charitable assets or engage in fraudulent fundraising practices.

AG Bonta’s primary mission at his GLIDE press conference was to warn the public against fraud.

One of the most insidious forms of fraud is when a scammer creates a website with a url similar to the url of a real charity. AG Bonta told a cautionary tale about a scammer who created a unicefcovidrelief.com website to impersonate the real UNICEF.

In the words of our President & CEO Dr. Gina Fromer: “It’s sad but true, sometimes scammers will impersonate charities. Remember, it’s glide.org/donate– accept no substitutes!”

AG Bonta also recommends that you stick to charities you trust and make sure every charity you donate to is properly registered with his office. Here is the registry search tool if you want to verify your holiday giving today.

GLIDE is grateful to the Attorney General for his safety tips, and for his staff’s help sorting through the toys donated to our 450 GLIDE families.

I’m originally from El Salvador. It was in 1989 when I came to San Francisco with my brother to seek out a better life. We lived with my mother who was already living here in the Mission District.

I spoke no English. But our mother was able to get us enrolled in what was then called Potrero Hill Middle School. I later attended Woodrow Wilson High school. But at 17, I got pregnant.

What made things even harder was I was in a series of abusive relationships. I was always self-conscious about myself and the father of my first child would criticize me for the way I looked, dressed, and even cooked. He made me doubt myself and it proved devastating to me. When my son was six, he abandoned us.

I met someone new, but that person proved no better. He began hitting and humiliating me. He was later arrested but so much damage had been done. I felt so much shame and guilt. It took some time, but I eventually attended a support group. It was there I learned more about domestic violence and felt as if they were talking about me. I broke down. I was also homeless for some time, being forced to move constantly over a period of ten years.

It wasn’t until 2019 when I began attending other support groups and I began learning how I could help myself and become a better version of myself. And that’s when GLIDE entered my life thanks to a recommendation from someone I knew.

Two years ago, I was looking mainly for a food bank to help me with groceries. I learned from a fellow mom about GLIDE’s Zero food waste pantry, which, at the time, was making bags of fresh vegetables and fruit available to low-income families. This really helped me.

I also was able to participate in parenting classes and workshops at GLIDE, including a presentation put on by Kid Power International. I later participated in a violence intervention program led by GLIDE’s Women’s Center Program Manager, Ileana Montano.

GLIDE has helped me in more ways than I can tell you. Now I have a stable job with a non-profit out in the Bayview of San Francisco and I’m a much happier person.

Dear GLIDE Community,

We’re so grateful for the support you showed us this Thanksgiving. Thanks to generous donations of food and funds, we served 128 turkeys, 70 hams, 210 pounds of stuffing, 288 pounds of yams, 200 pounds of green beans, and 36 gallons of gravy! It was enough to feed over two thousand people, both at GLIDE and through our meal deliveries.

Here’s a video of the feasting and merriment.

It’s not just about one meal, either. People who come to us during the holidays form a relationship with GLIDE. Through that relationship, they learn about our other programs, from recovery to women’s groups to homelessness prevention.

Browse through our photo gallery of love in action.

(L) Director of Volunteerism, Lindsey Coonan and (R) GLIDE President & CEO

Dr. Gina Fromer

If you volunteered or donated, know that you did more than bring joy to one day: you might have changed someone’s future! And the media is taking notice. On Thanksgiving, the S.F. Chronicle profiled Joy Jardine, a former GLIDE client who overcame homelessness and medical problems and triumphantly returned to GLIDE on Thanksgiving as a volunteer. KTVU interviewed our client Garth Martin about how GLIDE was the only place that brought his daughter peace and helped her out of her tough spot.

ABC7 quoted Haskell Allen after he received our meal delivery, “It means the world to people like me: I’ve been out here struggling with nothing for so long, and GLIDE really comes through with a lot of resources.”

Mayor London Breed, former Mayor Willie Brown, Supervisor-Elect Bilal Mahmood, Assessor Joaquin Torres, Fire Chief Sandy Tong, and other local leaders attended Thanksgiving. Mayor London Breed, Dr. Gina Fromer, and Minister Marvin K. White all gave words of gratitude and celebration at our 10am Thanksgiving celebration.

We couldn’t have done it without our community, so thank you for everything you do to support GLIDE. If you feel inspired to make someone’s day better with a warm meal and a kind word, our volunteering sign-up is always here for you.

In this season of giving and gratitude, we are grateful to everyone who makes our work at GLIDE possible, in all the ways you do!

Wishing you a merry holiday season,

Your friends at GLIDE

On Tuesday, December 10th at 3:00 p.m. in Room 250 at City Hall, GLIDE’s Center for Social Justice and its coalition partners will urge the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to overturn the RV ban passed by the SFMTA Board of Directors!

In October, the SFMTA Board of Directors, at the behest of the Mayor, passed an overnight ban on oversized vehicles on city streets selected by the Director of Transportation. With 90% of unsheltered families living in vehicles and the family shelter waitlist being 530 families-long, it is unconscionable to dispossess families of their homes, force them into temporary shelter, and to keep the hundreds of families waiting for shelter on the street longer.

We need real solutions, like safe parking sites and the expansion of permanent supportive housing— not mass criminalization of the working poor for political gain. At a time where our city and country is shifting to the right and further criminalizing our unhoused communities, we need to show up for our neighbors in RVs!

We’d love for you to bring your friends with you to City Hall to tell the SF Board of Supervisors to VOTE YES on overturning the SFTMA’s ban on RVs across the city. You can use this template as a starting point for reaching out to people you know to bring them to the public, or you can share our flier on social media with any of the hashtags: #NoTowingFamilyHomes #SafeParkingNotSweeps #DoNotTowMyHome #WhereDoWeGo #RVBanAppeal.

For more information, you can check out our full toolkit here. If you can’t make it in person, we urge you to email the SF Board of Supervisors; our toolkit has their email addresses and template emails to make it easy for you.

“People ask me, why am I not bitter? And I say to them, ‘hate and bitterness only eat me up from the inside. Love is a powerful emotion. Love transcends all.’”

Miss Joyce O’Neal shared these powerful words with participants from GLIDE’s Alabama Justice pilgrimage in the community room of the Brown Chapel AME Church, just a few short blocks from the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Born and raised in Selma, Miss O’Neal was a foot soldier in the 1960s, marching alongside Martin Luther King Jr. to secure the right to vote for African Americans.

In the last week of October, 25 people from the GLIDE community (ranging in age from one to 70!) spent five days immersed in learning the truth about American History. We met on-the-ground activists across Alabama – from Selma to Tuskegee – whose work continues to disrupt and transform incomplete narratives about oppression, crime, and punishment.

In the words of Steven Reed, the first Black Mayor of Montgomery, AL, “we are here to move from pain to progress.” As we absorbed stories of racial terror and extraordinary examples of resilience and courage, we made commitments to bring this learning back to our lives in the Bay Area.

We will continue to share stories about this experience from Board members, GLIDE Staff, Justice Academy graduates, and other community partners as we move closer to the goal of truth, justice, and reconciliation in its full and complete form.

The more sorrowful the times, the greater the intensity of GLIDE’s celebration: our joy is a candle we pass from one person to another and hold up against the darkness. Our master of ceremonies Priya Clemens opened Holiday Jam by acknowledging, “It’s hard to be up here after what we have been experiencing, after the shock and the pain… There is so much hate in the world, but what we have at GLIDE is love and joy. So let’s move forward, powered by that joy and love!”

After joy-filled, roof-rocking strains from the Glide Ensemble, a video tribute to Cecil played, showing him at all ages of his life. A chuckle passed through the audience as Cecil said, “I hate it when people tell me God loves me. Do YOU love me?! That is the question!” Indeed, our holiness is not dependent on allegiance to some abstract doctrine, but on how well we love the people in front of us.

Our President & CEO Dr. Gina Fromer, wearing a bright silver jacket that sparkled festively in the lights of the stage, reminded us of the power of love. “We have each other, and we’re in California (thank God we’re in California!) Cherish moments like this and soak in beloved community. There is so much love in this room. I hope you can feel it, because I do!” She spoke about GLIDE’s role in feeding all kinds of hunger; not only literally, through our free meals program, but the hunger for love, meaning, and belonging.

“You shouldn’t be afraid to raise your voice for what you believe in: for justice, for freedom, for a healthy city,” she urged the audience. “Hate is loud, so when GLIDE calls for justice, we must be louder!” Our Minister of Celebration Marvin K. White built on this theme, by saying, “A love agenda is the only thing that will combat Project 2025: we need an agenda of helping the most vulnerable. We can’t just sit around and cry, unless we can fight and cry at the same time.” In saying this, he echoed the sentiments of our churchgoers, who recently told an ABC reporter the election results were inspiring them to do more volunteer work to help the marginalized.

Michael Marshall sang “San Francisco: Be Sure to Wear Flowers In Your Hair,” and our former Director of Music Vernon Bush was reunited with the Glide Ensemble and his devoted fans and sang meltingly, “love is all there is,” a line from an original composition. The audience was then thrilled by a surprise appearance from activist and songwriter Joan Baez, who fittingly filled the auditorium with John Lennon’s famous song, “Imagine.”

In a video about GLIDE’s street outreach work, we shared Community Ambassador Andra Gadson’s story about finding meaning in helping others after overcoming incarceration. His coworkers wildly cheered as his face came on the huge screen.

Then our auctioneer Michael Tate from the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus masterfully charmed the audience. “Now you’re going to hear a big number,” he twinkled, “But if it’s not your number, just wait until your number comes. It’s coming: I promise you,” and then he put $100,000 on the screen, which was pledged in short order. “What are the bullet points on your love agenda?” Tate asked the auction-goers, and they responded with amazing generosity, in bids from $100,000 down to $250, giving us the money we need to keep helping people for another year.

Assemblymember Matt Haney briefly appeared on stage to declare, “We are not going back. We are not letting hate win. The love agenda is going to win!” to thunderous cheers. The mayor-elect Daniel Lurie did not make an appearance on stage, but rather sat back greatly enjoying the festivities.

The Philharmonik, winner of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert, played and sung his winning song, “What’s it all mean?” on the piano with a dynamic energy. And when our closing act, Lenny Williams danced on to the stage in a red sparkly jacket, he charmed everyone who was still sitting down onto their feet to dance. “This is for all the lovers in the house!” he shouted, before launching into his hit “Cause I Love You.” Joan Baez came back out to sing along with him. GLIDE community poured right onto the stage to merrily dance with the GLIDE Ensemble, before the event came to a stunning finish.

As we reflect on the joy of the evening, we’re also looking ahead. As wonderful an evening that we all had, and as generous as our community was, it is only a fraction of what GLIDE needs to provide our vital services through the holidays and all year long.

On the Sunday following the presidential election, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Assemblymember Matt Haney, our President & CEO Dr. Gina Fromer, and our Minister of Celebration Marvin K. White all urged our community to stay hopeful and inspired.

Together, we celebrated progress on the Church Building Fund and contemplated how GLIDE will always be a beacon of light and a refuge for people to turn to. Pictured here is our stained glass window, newly restored, thanks to state and federal funding. Check out the story of hope and resilience on CBS:

“Today, we will sing with you, dance with you, pray with you, and you will come out of this sanctuary ready to fight again,” proclaimed Minister Marvin as he opened the electrifying service. Dr. Fromer set the stage by saying, “We’ve got so much more work to do. The people most affected by what happened in our country last week, they’re going to get hit the hardest, they’re going to get hit the fastest, and we’ll be here to respond.”

Then Dr. Fromer shared her plan for a $100 million fundraising effort to expand GLIDE’s facilities to better serve our most marginalized community members. Our CEO wants to complete this fundraising over the next five years, so on GLIDE’s hundredth birthday, we will be prepared for our next hundred years.

The Church Building Fund represents the first ten million of $100 million needed, and we hope you are ready and willing to support us!

After thunderous applause, Speaker Emerita Pelosi began her remarks by saying, “Where is hope? Hope is where it always has been, sitting right between faith and charity. We need hope now, because of what happened the other day… but let’s see everything as an opportunity.”

Then she spoke about how every human being has a spark of divinity inside of them, and we are called on to love and respect every person. Unhoused people, immigrants (documented or not) and even our political enemies all had sparks of divinity within them, according to the Speaker Emerita Pelosi.

When Assemblymember Haney used the cheerful strains of the Change Band to dance up to the podium, he said, “Even if I wasn’t speaking here today, I still would come to GLIDE this morning. It helps that I live only two blocks away.”

We appreciated that Assemblymember Haney acknowledged GLIDE as a treasured neighbor and a source of spiritual comfort in tough times, and for his assistance getting state funding for our Church Building Fund.

He went on to say, “This week I’ve been praying more, I’ve been talking with God more, so I wanna thank God for GLIDE! I think about what we’re up against right now, and I think about who is going to find themselves under attack. Those people are right outside the door right now. They are our neighbors, my neighbors, they are immigrant and trangender neighbors. They have GLIDE: here, they are seen and cared for and loved. GLIDE makes sure that they know we care for them. The real fight we’re in right now is the fight to make sure every single human being has dignity, worth and is seen and cared for and loved.”

“The haters are going to hate, us we gota love,” Assemblymember Haney added, the most-applauded line of his speech. Next came our Minister of Celebration’s rousing words of comfort and hope, well-worth viewing in full:

Highlights from Minister Marvin’s words include, “We cannot afford to let fear calcify in our bodies. We can’t lose faith in one another. We cannot lose our drive to make sure that we no longer have people who might be considered disposable. We must look to the margins more than ever.” He also spoke with sympathy and protectiveness of the many women who are getting threatening messages that say, “Your body, my choice,” after the election.

For his text, Minister Marvin took Isaiah 61, which speaks of the comfort God gives to the grieving and the broken-hearted. “In the streets of the Tenderloin, Isaiah’s call to bind up the broken hearted, becomes an invitation to see one another more deeply,” the minister said.

“It challenges us to stand against mass incarceration, racial injustice, women’s right to choose, and the criminalization of the homeless. Transformation is still possible, y’all. Community can indeed rise from despair.”

Our board member Del Seymour, the subject of the recently released book, The Mayor of the Tenderloin, honored Veteran’s Day by saying, “Veteran’s Day is not a day we celebrate war. It is a day we celebrate coming home.” He urged people to remember to advocate for homeless veterans, and called a witness to speak movingly about his own time as a homeless veteran.

The work of hope, justice, and spiritual healing that takes place at our church is made possible by your support, so please consider donating to our Church Building Fund.

As Minister Marvin says, “The Tenderloin deserves beauty. Please don’t think it’s a small thing or a beautification project.” We need a modernized, accessible, and restored sanctuary to continue sharing a message of hope and love, join us!

Rising From the Ashes, A Neighborhood Unites!

“We appreciate you. We love you. You all matter,” proclaimed GLIDE’s President & CEO Dr. Gina Fromer. With these words, a cheer erupted from the crowds.

The Glide Memorial Church Ensemble rang out with a rousing version of Love is the Answer and Ain’t my God Good as residents of the Tenderloin flocked to the dance floor, moving and swaying to the beat. Under a cerulean San Francisco sky, the culmination of months of planning had finally arrived to kick off the 4th annual Phoenix Day celebration.

People of all ages, races, backgrounds, and beliefs spilled onto the closed blocks of 300 and 400 Ellis Street to enjoy Carnival themed activities, food, and entertainment. A long line, stretching the length of a city block snaked through the crowd as people awaited Corn Dogs, cole slaw, and chips (donated by Meals on Wheels). Head Chef Char Marsden and the Community Meals team at GLIDE served a total of 1,300 meals to the revelers throughout the course of the day.

Up and down the block, people delighted in the company of big fluffy bunnies at the petting zoo; took aim at the chance to submerge a man in a pink suit at the dunk tank; tested their strength at the hammer striker; and, for the toddlers, pushed the pedal to the medal at the mini race car track.

Beyond the beats and the fun, attendees also got the chance to check some practical items off their list. They signed up to vote at a voter registration station, received vaccines from UCSF, and learned about a number of inspiring nonprofit organizations throughout the Tenderloin.

Dating back to ancient Egyptian times, the Phoenix represents new life and resilience. Much like its namesake, the Tenderloin tells the story of the beauty, strength, resilience and diversity of the human spirit. In the words of Dr. Gina Fromer, “We are about unconditional love and radical inclusion, and we’re taking it to the streets to celebrate today.”

Special thanks to our co-sponsors Youth with a Mission, The Healing Well, Mercy Housing, and TNDC. We couldn’t have planned this day without them!

On Wednesday, October 2nd, GLIDE along with community leaders and lawmakers held a rally at City Hall in support of Proposition 6, the statewide ballot initiative to enhance safety and save taxpayer dollars by prioritizing rehabilitation in California prisons.

As a co-sponsor of Proposition 6, GLIDE led this community event to bring awareness about this historic ballot initiative, joining the national movement to remove language in our state constitution that dehumanizes incarcerated people.

The rally consisted of several community organizations including, Young Women’s Freedom Center, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ), and Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.

Our very own GLIDE President & CEO, Dr. Gina, kicked off the event by speaking about the significance of passing Proposition 6 for our clients, staff and the overall Glide community around the Bay Area. “At GLIDE, we have worked for decades to break cycles of poverty and marginalization for low-income San Franciscans, and we know that people can thrive through education, opportunity, supportive services, empathy, and respect.”

Under Proposition 6, state prisons could still set up volunteer work assignment programs. But by ending involuntary servitude, incarcerated individuals won’t be punished if they decline work in favor of rehabilitation-related programming.

Present at the rally were Assemblymember Matt Haney and San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston, who spoke to the audience about the role of Proposition 6 as a public safety matter that is long overdue for our state. Assemblymember Matt Haney said“I am proud to support Prop 6 because ending forced prison work will prioritize rehabilitation.

Prop 6 will help those released from incarceration to have a fair shot of reentering society successfully reducing recidivism and crime.” We had Kim Tavaglione, Executive Director of the San Francisco Labor Council, speaking about the rights of incarcerated workers.

Andra Gadson, GLIDE Ambassador and Field Manager speaking to the crowd in
support of Prop 6

Andra Gadson, GLIDE Field Manager, was among speakers with lived experience of prisons. He spoke in support of voluntary work assignments and how they prepared him to gain employment once he was released from prison.

In closing, the Skywatchers Ensemble led the community in a modified version of the song, Ella’s Song by Sweet Honey in the Rock, about the importance of fighting for freedom for those who are the most marginalized in our communities.

We want to give a special thank you to all our elected officials, community leaders and members for joining GLIDE on this day.

Author: communications

Rising From the Ashes, A Neighborhood Unites!

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