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How ‘A meal with Dignity’ fosters community and lifts the soul of the unsheltered homeless

4 min read

Better Society
How ‘A meal with Dignity’ fosters community and lifts the soul of the unsheltered homeless
Source: Facebook/amealwithdignity

This San Francisco non-profit wants inspire everyone to feed their neighbours currently experiencing homelessness with dignity – one personally-delivered, fresh & nutritious bagged lunch at a time.

Everyone deserves a meal with dignity

For anyone who believes in the human right to food, A Meal With Dignity is a San Francisco-based feeding program that provides fresh, organic and sustainable individual bagged lunches, made by hand in small batches, and delivered in person to the unsheltered homeless where they are. 

You don’t need an organisation to feed neighbours who are temporarily experiencing homelessness on the streets in our communities. Make a fresh, organic, and sustainable lunch and share that nourishment.
Do it yourself! You don’t need an organisation to feed neighbours who are temporarily experiencing homelessness on the streets in our communities. Make a fresh, organic, and sustainable lunch and share that nourishment. Source: Facebook/amealwithdignity

A Meal With Dignity: delivering food and medicines to neighbours experiencing homelessness

The humanitarian crisis of homelessness in San Francisco led a group of individuals who are passionate about food and helping others to start the grassroots organisation A Meal With Dignity in 2017. 

The founders believe fresh, in season, organic food is medicine and that it has the power to heal individuals and communities by raising each other up by serving people experiencing homelessness with dignity. 

What started as a pop-up kitchen in Founder, Joy D’Ovidio’s house, with 4 volunteers, has now evolved into a monthly event where closer to 20 volunteers get together to make food with love and passion with the objective of making 5,000 meals by the end of 2021. 

“Through our practice and method, we hope to instill a sense of duty to other communities in all parts of the world to take on the role of community healers, bringing dignity with food to their own specific communities!”

Check out their website and find them on Facebook|Instagram|Twitter|YouTube 

“Our vision is to foster community, lift the soul, and nourish the spirits of the unsheltered homeless in need - as well as our friends, neighbours and families.” says Joy D’Ovidio. Cofounder Gene adds, “Everyone recognises that we all have a deep, human desire to be treated as something of value. I believe that it is our highest common denominator.”
Joy and Gene D’Ovidio, the founders of AMWD! “Our vision is to foster community, lift the soul, and nourish the spirits of the unsheltered homeless in need – as well as our friends, neighbours and families.” says Joy D’Ovidio. Cofounder Gene adds, “Everyone recognises that we all have a deep, human desire to be treated as something of value. I believe that it is our highest common denominator.” Source: Facebook/amealwithdignity

Help A Meal With Dignity with their Virtual Meal-Making Event

There is currently a Humanitarian Crisis of Homelessness and Hunger in our communities.

  • Did you know that people experiencing homelessness often suffer nutritional deficiencies, malnutrition, and painful dental decay?
  • Are you wondering how you could contribute individually to relieve some of that pain caused by food insecurity within our neighbourhoods?
  • Would you be inspired to help A Meal With Dignity make and deliver fresh and sustainable meals to our community members who are currently experiencing homelessness?

A Meal With Dignity is a San Francisco nonprofit whose mission is to inspire everyone to feed our neighbours currently experiencing homelessness with dignity – one hand-delivered, fresh & nutritious bagged lunch at a time. 

They are currently halfway to their goal of 2,000 meals by the end of the year – 952 down and 1,048 meals to go! But they need help to get there! On their website they say:

We invite you to join us – from your own home – by the simple act of making healthy lunches and delivering them directly to our unsheltered neighbors at our Virtual Meal-Making Event via Zoom. Attending A Meal With Dignity event is a unique opportunity to create a relevant and meaningful community impact on all those affected by homelessness – housed and unhoused.

We continue our vital work during the Delta variant using the small and simple virtual event format, enabling more communities to participate in bringing nourishment to our unhoused neighbors.

If you are interested in joining us, please order supplies ahead of time, which can be accessed here.

Please look over our Meal-Making Toolkit for a list of ingredients used in the sandwiches, along with the basic preparation steps and information.

The event starts on September 25th at 10:30 am PST and should go until 12:30 pm, including delivery time.
RSVP or reach out with any questions to our event host, Casey, at casey@amealwithdignity.org

And out of that simple act of human kindness AMWD was born. ‘We gather to ease the suffering of those without homes.’
One day 4 years ago around Thanksgiving, Gene D’Ovidio bought a loaf of bread, made 10 high quality sandwiches and delivered them to people in tents down the street from his home. And out of that simple act of human kindness AMWD was born. ‘We gather to ease the suffering of those without homes.’ Source: Facebook/amealwithdignity
A Meal With Dignity Event (example) A typical AMWD event that can be done in Schools, Business Offices or Home. Source: Facebook/amealwithdignity
Make an Impact

DONATE TO A MEAL WITH DIGNITY

“We are a small team of hardworking volunteers that are trying to make the world a better place. Your funds will help us develop our meal guides, improve our volunteer guides, help iron out our website and social media outreach, and most importantly it will help our volunteers feed the unsheltered in our local communities.” — A Meal With Dignity