My March 25 Friends

I made two new friends volunteering at the Food Bank today.

The last time I volunteered at a Food Bank was for a school field trip and having walked by last week, I was keen to sign up.

It was a beautiful, sunny day and I was eager to jump in bagging potatoes, pears, apples, carrots, rice, chicken, oranges and lentils in massive plastic bags as people lined up to grab their portion for the week.

I found the task quite meditative and as I made my way to each station, I started keeping pace with Chelsea, who moved to the Bay five years ago and absolutely loves the city.

While not working currently, she has been filling her time volunteering, learning how to rollerblade in GGP, and reading.

Chelsea shared that she loves this food bank because of the diversity of people we get to serve. She estimated that the food banks help about 9,000 families per week which is staggering.

We talked about books we were reading and she’s about to start Klara and the Sun, a dystopian novel about leveraging AI to deal with the loneliness pandemic in children these days.

It sounded interesting and similar to the Ex Machina and Black Mirror sentiments.

We mused on the concept of loneliness and she said that she tries to make an effort to talk to strangers too. As an introvert, it’s a little harder, but she really sees the value in it. I asked her what her strategies were to engage people randomly; she usually starts with asking if they live in the area as well.

Chelsea’s grandfather advises that “if you ask people questions, they’ll do all the talking,” and we laughed because we both employ this strategy.

We agreed that we were both grateful for the support network we have.

Curious if she participated in any of the San Francisco classics, like Bay to Breakers, she totally perked up. Bay to Breakers is near and dear to her heart. She and her friends dress up in a random theme (last year was things that rhyme with “ten”) and she has gone 10 times.

For her parents’ 30th wedding anniversary, they renewed their vows at B2B, ordered a cake and Popeye’s and had all of Chelsea’s friends dress up as bridesmaids. Her parents actually met at B2B 30 years ago!

What a fascinating and interesting story.

I also met Tracy, a retired art consultant, who loves the Food Bank. Tracy has been here quite a while but is originally from Denver. She misses art exhibits in England and Italy and cannot wait to get on a plane again.

But for the time being, she is filling her time volunteering and is ever so grateful for her health.