Every Friday afternoon, Linda delivers groceries for the Food Bank to neighbors along the same route in Central Marin — something she’s done for more than many years.
In that time, she’s seen the community change. But her weekly volunteer shift, part of the Food Bank’s Home-Delivered Groceries program, has remained a constant, rooted in connection and care for the people she serves.
“We don’t plan anything else on Friday afternoon,” she says. “It’s blocked off for the Food Bank, and we love looking forward to it.”
Many of the people Linda visits are older adults or have limited mobility, making it hard to get to a pantry or store. And, in some ways, the visit from Linda means just as much as the food itself.
“I’ve gotten to know the people I deliver to,” she says. “It’s not just about the food. It’s about showing up. And that connection goes both ways.”
For Linda and her husband Bill, supporting the San Francisco Marin Food Bank has always been personal. They’ve seen how hunger shows up in their own community and they’ve made it their mission to help.
That’s why they decided to include the Food Bank in their estate plans.
“We don’t have children,” Linda explains. “So, when we thought about what we wanted our legacy to be, we knew we wanted to support organizations doing work that truly matters. The Food Bank does that.”
When they learned that Marin has one of the highest poverty rates in the Bay Area (a 17% child poverty rate and a 14.4% overall rate, according to the Public Policy Institute of California), they were stunned. “People think this is a wealthy county,” Linda says. “But hunger is here. You don’t have to be [visibly] poor to be hungry, and a lot of people are struggling silently.”
Bill, a former financial analyst, says they carefully vetted every organization in their trust, and the Food Bank stands out. “We looked at the impact, the transparency, how far every dollar goes,” he says. “The Food Bank does the work and makes a real difference.”
Their legacy gift will help the Food Bank continue meeting immediate needs while investing in long-term change — like providing even more neighbors with home-delivered groceries and advocating for policy solutions that address the root causes of hunger.
Linda says she and Bill often talk about planned giving with friends, hoping to plant a seed and a sense of urgency.
“A lot of folks say, ‘I’ll get to it someday,’” Linda says. “But it doesn’t work that way. You have to put it in writing, spell it out, and make it real. It was easy for us because we feel so strongly about it.”
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