Every week, Jas walks the Food Bank’s Shop Floor at our Pennsylvania Avenue warehouse with a two-tier cart and the same goal in mind: how to make life easier and brighter for the young people they serve at the SF LGBT Center.
“It feels like I’m grocery shopping,” they say.
The SF LGBT Center is one of roughly 200 community organizations the Food Bank serves through its Shop Floor. On any given weekday, partners of every kind, from after-school programs to agencies offering congregate meals, come to the warehouse and fill boxes and carts of healthy food for the people who count on them. Nutritious produce is free, and the rest of the groceries are sold at a discount through the Food Bank. Much of it arrives through Fresh Rescue, our program that recovers good food from grocery stores like Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Safeway — food that would have gone to waste and is instead headed to someone’s kitchen.
Jas heads straight for the canned tuna and chicken.
“These are the best thing, especially for our folks who are on the street,” Jas says. “They have these little cap-on tops, so you don’t need a can opener.”
The young people who come to the Center are between 16 and 24, known as Transitional Age Youth: newly out, newly arrived and often on their own for the first time.
Many left home — or were pushed out of it.
“So many queer and trans kids don’t have family,” Jas says. “Once they turn 18, it’s either they leave or they get kicked out. And then you just don’t have anyone teaching you what to do. That’s kind of why we exist.”
For a lot of those young people in transition, the Center is the first door they walk through in San Francisco, before they’ve sorted out housing, benefits or even an EBT card.
“When so many of our kids get here, they’re from other states, other counties, other countries,” Jas says. “They’re not set up with EBT or anything yet. So we are one of their only food sources.”
MJ, 23, knows that path well. They came to San Francisco after a three-day bus ride, with no housing and no contacts.
The Center moved fast to help. “They helped me get housing,” MJ says. “They helped me get a fare to get around. They got me in touch with the benefits to get medical. They got me in touch with a law firm.”
The Food Bank kept MJ fed while the Center helped address the root causes of their hardship.
Today MJ is housed, studying public policy and a member of the Center’s Youth Leadership Committee (YLC), helping unload the same Shop Floor deliveries they once relied on and putting them together for the new arrivals. Doing it brings back what those boxes meant when MJ was the one opening them.
“With the food boxes, that’s the first time I consistently had fruit in my entire life,” MJ says.
Even now, MJ lights up over a good find. “I’ll have something from the Food Bank and I’m like, okay, I have to take a photo of this,” they say.
For Sophia, 21, who fled Texas to avoid homelessness, the Center is the reason she has housing today. She later joined MJ on the YLC, offering the same care she once received. She thinks a lot about what actually helps.
“For homeless people, grab-and-go meals are the best,” she says. As a disabled person without an oven, she looks for food that doesn’t ask for energy she doesn’t have, the kind of no-cook, resealable items Jas reaches for on the Shop Floor. “A bag of chips can be resealed,” she says. She has cooked noodles in a kettle.
Jas hears the gratitude in the youth they serve.
“I’ve heard many, many times from them, ‘I can’t believe you guys have this,'” Jas says. “Or, I haven’t cooked something for myself in so long. I haven’t had a meal in such a long time.”
MJ has watched it from both sides. The first time someone comes through, they grab as much as they can carry, unsure when there will be more.
“The next time they come, you see them take less,” MJ says. The fear of scarcity eases. “The next time I come here, I know there will be something,” they say. “I really appreciate that.”
It all starts on the Shop Floor: the fruit MJ could finally count on, the resealable snacks Sophia keeps on hand, the meals that leave kids in disbelief, each one chosen from a cart by someone like Jas who knows what these kids need.
This Pride Month, we’re thinking about what it takes to build that kind of safety. Chosen family. A warm meal. A place that lets you be who you are. The young people at the SF LGBT Center found those things in one another, and in people like Jas who show up week after week to make sure no one is left behind. The Food Bank is part of this community, not apart from it, and we’re here for everyone, however they identify. Food is rarely just food. It’s connection, comfort and a sign that someone thought of you, and a reason to honor the resilience of LGBTQ+ youth and the partners who help them feel safe, nourished and seen.
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