As the city awakens one recent Friday morning, the kitchen inside St. Anthony of Padua is in full swing.
In synchronized fashion, Latino volunteers dice onions and marinate batches of chicken, cooking up a classic Peruvian dish, chicken with rice, diligently watching the clock. In roughly two hours, they will start plating more than 100 meals for people lining up outside the door.
The weekly Friday meal distribution program has been around for 20 years, but these days, volunteers and participants often are grappling with housing insecurity, rising cost of living and job instability that for some are exacerbated by their immigration status.
Through it all, the strong community connections are palpable, expressed in the Latino love language of a home-cooked meal.
“You can feel the human warmth and companionship here,” said Maria Lopez, 70, as she ate a fried chicken rice dish outside the church, located on the border of San Francisco’s Mission and Bernal Heights neighborhoods. Her husband was recently laid off and she has struggled to find employment since being injured while working in 2008.
Lopez is one of several people who rely on a weekly meal at the church, particularly as they have seen costs of everyday necessities rise.
“This is a recent development — expensive gas, expensive food, expensive rent,” Lopez said. “Everything is expensive and in short supply.”
According to Consumer Price Index data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices for all categories of food and beverage in August were up 3.1% from the same month in 2025 in the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward statistical area. That was on top of a 3.6% increase from August 2024.
Grocery prices in the city have increased by 35% since 2020, according to an analysis of Consumer Price Index data by the San Francisco Chronicle, similar to a nationwide increase in food prices.
The stories of those seeking food at St. Anthony of Padua are not unique to the neighborhood around the church and service providers connected to food assistance programs around the city say more people are looking for help.
Cissie Bonini is the executive director of Vouchers for Veggies, also known as EatSF, a program managed by the University of California, San Francisco, which coordinates with clinics and community-based organizations to distribute vouchers for fresh produce to low-income residents. She said demand for the organization’s services has grown and will likely continue doing so.
“We haven’t seen such a squeeze on people’s food budgets,” she said. “We know that rents eat first.”
Bonini said federal resources like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program used to be a “stopgap” solution for people facing food insecurity, and with San Francisco’s cost of living rising, those resources are no longer enough. She noted also that accessing food assistance in communities of color is nuanced because of fears of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeting distribution sites.
Moisés Agudo, a pastor at St. Anthony of Padua and two other Mission churches, echoed Bonini’s observations and said families are worrying increasingly about being able to buy food while paying their rent; the latter used to be the main concern for many.
Agudo, who is also the vicar for the Spanish-speaking community in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, said this city, financially enriched by the booming tech sector, “should be a place where people are doing well — a global example of how to help, support, and put resources to good use. Yet it’s where we have the most homeless people and the most suffering.”
The food distribution program, organized by the civic engagement nonprofit Faith in Action Bay Area, began in the early 2000s and serves mostly Latinos. It is volunteer-run and relies on donations from local churches and community members.
While the volunteers give time and labor to help others, they too face housing insecurity. The 6 a.m. start time for preparing food comes both from shelters needing guests to check out and because most volunteers need to head to work after meal distribution ends.
Rocio Blas, a Peruvian immigrant who has lived in San Francisco for two years, stays in a shelter with her husband and daughter. For Blas, volunteering is not only about supporting the Latino community she belongs to but also about understanding the risks that come with being on the streets.
“We don’t have any other family, but when we’re with the other team members, we feel good,” Blas said. “It’s a time when we might forget our problems and just share laughs and conversation.”
In San Francisco’s 2024 Point-in-Time Count, the city’s biennial, one-night census of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness, 34% of those surveyed who were homeless in San Francisco identified as Hispanic or Latine.
While preparing the meals to give away, some volunteers make a group breakfast, and even prepare food they and their families can eat throughout the week if they are staying at shelters, hotels or other temporary housing without access to a kitchen.
The solidarity and understanding of the volunteers isn’t unique to housing or even culture; it also comes from a deep understanding of being an immigrant.
Recently, in the wake of several immigration raids, they conducted a “Know Your Rights” workshop for people waiting in line for food to inform them about their constitutional and legal protections.
Offering this kind of person-to-person education reflects how much important information is shared within this community. Organizers say the main way people learn about the meal distribution is word of mouth.
One man in line, who goes by the name Kennedy, said he and several people behind him often contract to do landscaping and construction jobs. They talk about the food distribution with fellow workers.
“We all look out for one another, letting each other know where we can get food,” he said. “Regarding the man currently running the country, we Hispanics benefit less; some are lucky enough to find work, others aren’t. That’s what brings us here.”
Gonzalo Moran, 75, who has frequented the food distribution sites since 2000, described how he and others could afford to eat anything they wanted before the prices went up.
“The little we earn doesn’t go far anymore,” Moran said. “Back in 1976, when I first came with $100, I’d leave with about eight bags of groceries. Not today. Two small bags and that’s $100 right there. Everything is expensive, but you know, that’s down to the government’s economic policies. The government doesn’t care about Americans or immigrants.”
Moran, who has seen various phases of the food distribution, said he’s not alone in being consistent in showing up. He said a majority of those seeking a meal are day laborers. He said consistency in showing up every Friday before trying to find a job for the day has led to a sense of comfort.
“When the food is good, people come back for more,” Agudo said. “And also because they feel cared for. It’s not simply about feeding them; it goes much deeper than that. It’s about them feeling accepted, loved, and valued,” said Agudo.
For Guadalupe, who declined to share her full name, citing concerns about her immigration status, the food she receives on Fridays at St. Anthony of Padua is one of the few full meals she has every week, as she can afford only bread and fruit most days.
“I’m not exactly comfortable, but what can I do? I have to get used to it,” said the 56-year-old who immigrated from Peru three years ago. “That’s how I live — back and forth, waiting for my work permit to come through.”
At 8 a.m., right before the food is plated, the buzz of the kitchen slows. The cooks gather and join in a prayer, wishing well to those who cooked and those who will receive the food. Moments later, an organizer goes outside and leads a similar prayer for those awaiting a hot meal.
The silence is brief. Volunteers begin plating the food, making sure each one has a share of pickled jalapeños and tortillas to accompany the main dish, while others push a metal cart with finished plates toward the entrance.
“Fourteen more plates! A new group of people just showed up,” yelled out one of the volunteers relaying between the kitchen and the front of the line.
