Reflecting on the History of Volunteering in Our Community
Welcome back to our monthly volunteer newsletter. I want to start our new year off right by thanking all the volunteers that made our 2023 extra special. Last year we hosted over two thousand unique volunteers over our 364 operating days. It is these volunteers that made serving our over 500,000 meals served per year possible. It is YOU that made this possible!
January starts our new year with a significant holiday, MLK Jr Day. On January 15th, individuals across the United States, and here at GLIDE honored his memory through MLK Day of Service initiatives. As GLIDE recognizes his legacy, we would like to take a moment to spotlight changemakers who may not receive regular recognition.
As always, please reach out if you have any experiences or volunteers, you would like us to highlight. You can reach us for newsletter inquiries via volteam@glide.org. Please put Volunteer Spotlight in the subject line.
Upcoming Volunteer Opportunities
Center for Social Justice
GLIDE’s Center for Social Justice in San Francisco works to build a social justice movement to influence public policy on poverty, food insecurity, housing, discrimination, racial justice and human rights.
GLIDE does this through grassroots organizing, community education and engagement, thought leadership, and policy development. We convene community members and policymakers to amplify the voices of the community. In addition, we mobilize GLIDE clients, congregants, volunteers, supporters, and neighbors to become agents of change.
Daily Free Meals Program
Volunteering with our meals team is one example of how you can make an instant difference in another persons day. Either by serving meals directly to those in need or supporting our chefs in the prep room; you become a part of our larger mission of combatting basic needs insecurity in San Fransisco.
By signing up via our volunteer portal, you make our events possible. Meal service is just one of the many volunteer opportunitys we offer that allow our volunteers to directly engage with and support our local community. For Daily Free Meals Team and all other events, you can visit our shift calendar.
Thank you for supporting GLIDE!
Uplifting Lesser-Known Voices
Spotlight: Brad Lomax
Brad Lomax was a Black Panther member and disability rights activist. He assisted in founding the Washington Black Panther Chapter before moving to Oakland. He became involved in the disability rights movement upon attempting to ride the bus in Oakland and meeting extreme difficulty.
He went on to help lead protests, including occupying the 4th floor of the San Fransisco Federal Building with over a hundred other activists demanding an end to discrimination against those with disabilities. This peaceful protest lasted from April 5th till May 4th 1977; it is the longest recorded peaceful occupation of a federal building in United States History! It was Lomax’s connection to the Black Panthers that led the Panthers to provide meals to the disability rights activists—it was their intersectional approach supported by Lomax which made the takeover successful.
An icon of the disability rights movement, Judy Heumann, gave him praise for being the person to move disability rights up on the agenda list for the black panthers. The Black Panthers later went on to pay for Lomax and other activists transportation to Washington DC when they began planning to pressure representatives to sign new regulations to protect disabled people’s human rights.
Supporting Our Community
Program Spotlight: GLibrary
This spotlight is geared towards highlighting the amazing work Waverlee does with our GLibrary initiative. GLibrary stands for GLIDE Library and you can find GLibrary outside of 330 Ellis Street every Thursday and at various special GLIDE events! Waverlee maintains a diverse array of books, with an even split between pre-kindergarten – Young Adult and Adult books. Additionally, the GLibrary stocks books in both Spanish and Cantonese!
At our most recent Sunday Streets fair, Waverlee and our team provided over 80 visitors with access to new books for themselves and their children. Our team strives to ensure our clients feel supported, GLibrary is a piece of this mission by having no barrier to access. There is no better feeling than when we tell individuals that all the books are free, and they may take as many books as they need.
If you would like to donate books to GLibrary, we appreciate books in new condition across all genres. You may contact our GLibrarian Waverlee at: Wcraig@glide.org if you have any questions or would like to coordinate drop off of materials.
Thank you again to our Volunteers
Thank you for reading this month’s newsletter. It is engaged volunteers like YOU who make a difference. Thank you for reading this month’s newsletter. It is engaged volunteers like YOU who make a difference.
You may contact me at Tstapp@glide.org. If you have a story suggestion, please put Volunteer Newsletter Story in the subject line and I will get back to you as soon as possible.