Full Circle Crew

Vicki B started volunteering at St. Anthony’s in September of 2008, but she knew well before that that she wanted to! Vicki, just like her father before her, carries a special devotion to St. Anthony. When Vicki retired from her teaching career, she put on her apron in the St. Anthony’s Dining Room. When she first started, the Dining Room was still in its original location at 45 Jones Street—the transformed underground garage where volunteers like Vicki helped to serve more than 38 million meals by the time we moved into our temporary location, 150 Golden Gate in Feb of 2012. Two and a half years later in the fall of 2014, Vicki moved with us again to serve our dear guests out of the new St. Anthony’s Dining Room at 121 Golden Gate.

Vicki’s one of the “full circle crew”—45 Jones, to 150 Golden Gate, and back right above the original— to 121 Golden Gate. Vicki was kind enough to give me a few moments of her time away from the serving line to share some of her thoughts about volunteering in the Dining Room.
“When I first started, my family was a little concerned about the neighborhood, but they’ve learned from me that the people are wonderful…’There but for the grace of God go I…’ I wanted to give back, to do a little something. And it makes us (volunteers) happy to help! I’ve done everything—bussing, bringing the trays…My favorite is to be on the serving line: seeing the people, their smiles…”

Asked about changes or similarities she’s noticed in the circle of locations in the last nearly 3 years now, Vicki says: “State of the art! It’s beautiful, this new Dining Room, and the guests love it. The temporary one was pretty nice too…small. And the original, well, we had our little mice friends sometimes…” What Vicki agrees hasn’t changed is the warm regard shared between everyone. She says it’s very rare that someone is disagreeable, but far from dismissing such occasional behavior, Vicki says “’these are the least of my brethren’”… the ones often in the greatest need of kindness.

Vicki mentioned that the world today has so many very difficult challenges: “to be able to come here and do a little something: I’m grateful!” And we’re grateful Vicki’s here every week serving with joy and compassion—full circle from one guest to the next. Bless you, Vicki!

If you’re an individual volunteer here at St. Anthony’s, I would love to feature you in one of our monthly newsletters! Please contact Marie at 415-592-2726 or at moconnor@stanthonysf.org. Thanks!