Update from Executive Director Barry Stenger

On October 4th, 2014 – the feast of St. Francis and exactly 64 years after St. Anthony’s Dining Room served its first meal – we opened the door to a brand new $22.5 million building.  We proudly proclaimed “We’re Opening the Door to So Much More.”

Now, 5 months after that historic day, the More has come to fruition.  More meals in our state-of-the-art Dining Room; more experience in planning and executing disaster management and resiliency (overnight shelter during our brief but intense winter rain); more clothes and counseling now that our Social Work Center and Clothing program are a mere one flight above the Dining Room; more room to greet the 12,000+ volunteers that provide the backbone of our daily operations, and a technology training program that has nearly doubled in capacity.

• Dining Room: larger space allows us to serve more people, utilize more volunteers, and serve as an emergency shelter during both big and small disaster scenarios.
• Expanded Prep Kitchen: new space allows for 200 recovering addicts to go through our Job Training Program each year.
• Smart Classroom & Community Room: 1st Floor at 150 Golden Gate (was the temporary dining room) will be used to host 12,000 + volunteers for poverty education workshops and provides a space for groups in the neighborhood.
• Tenderloin Technology Lab: has expanded by 33% to help more than 100 low-income guests on a daily basis, learn how to use a computer for job searches, housing, and social services.
• Social Work Center (SWC) & Free Clothing Program (FCP):  Enhance cross program participation as part of the backbone of the Gateway model of social service delivery.  FCP has relocated from 8th and Mission to the 2nd floor of our new building to share a program space with SWC. The new gateway model has shown immediate outcomes in meeting basic needs of very low-income San Franciscans.

The points above list the features to our Gateway Campus Model for Social Service.  We welcome you to share this story with your networks. The story of how, in a city named for St. Francis, St. Anthony’s has stepped up to meet the challenges of the 21st century, brokering unprecedented generosity with the rising need of our poorest brothers and sisters.