Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco didn't let the pandemic stop its annual Christmas brunch as volunteers Thursday loaded trucks full of warm Christmas meals to be delivered throughout the community.
For the 27th year, Joe Betz and San Francisco’s House of Prime Rib donated 3,000 pounds of prime rib for the popular brunch.
This year, as Glide continued to adapt to the pandemic and current COVID-19 restrictions, the beloved prime rib meals were loaded into trucks and delivered to guests of the church's Daily Free Meals program in takeout containers.
"It’s nobody’s fault we have the coronavirus, and they should not be suffering," Betz said. "We’re able to do it, and we’ll continue to do it."
The meals included lemon butter broccoli, mash potatoes, dinner rolls and eclairs.
"I’ve been coming here for 20 years," said one guest named Denise. "With our economy like it is, unemployment and our country so strapped, this is a lovely meal they give to us."
Normally, the church would have about 500 volunteers to help with the meal distribution, but not this year. Still, they were able to get meals to nearly 1,700 people on Thursday, and they were bracing for the possibility of many more to feed in the new year.
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"Once the evictions start happening, we’ll see a whole new wave of people who will need our help. So we’re getting ready for that," Glide Chief Strategy Officer Jean Cooper said.
