San Francisco-Marin Food Bank Opens More Free Pop-Up Pantries

MARIN COUNTY, CA — The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank is opening seven additional free pop-up pantries this week to provide healthy food during the new coronavirus pandemic. Six other pantries opened last week.

Most of the pantries are located at schools that are offering to-go meals for students, but the pantries are open to anyone in the community.

These are the locations in Marin and San Francisco as well as the day they will open:

Marin County

• Monday: St. Andrews Presbyterian Church
• Wednesday: Bayside MLK School
• Thursday: Marin Community Clinic; San Geronimo Valley Community Center*

(Note: Only the pantry at San Geronimo Valley Community Center will be structured as a pop-up and open to the community. The other pantries will require sign-up in advance.)

San Francisco

• Monday: Bay View Opera House
• Tuesday: Cesar Chavez Elementary School
• Wednesday: James Denman Middle School; Rosa Parks Elementary School
• Thursday: Francisco Middle School; Mission High School; Bessie Carmichael School
• Friday: Lincoln High School; APA Family Support Services Visitacion Valley

The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank opened the pop-up pantries after more than 100 pantries in its network of over 275 pantries closed in recent weeks due to the coronavirus crisis.

The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank served more than 1,800 people in San Francisco during the first week the pantries opened.

Volunteers are needed at the weekly food pantries. Volunteer shifts will take place outdoors, most often on the sidewalk or in a parking lot, according to the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank.

To protect the health of volunteers and community members, the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank is asking participants to keep a sizable distance from one another while in line. In addition, volunteers are pre-bagging groceries to minimize contact between volunteers and those they serve. The organization is also encouraging all other best practices, including cleaning surfaces regularly, providing hand sanitizer, and wearing gloves.

"We hope these measures will help us strike a balance between keeping our community safe while also performing the essential service of getting food to those who need it," the organization said on its website. "But we encourage you to consider your own health before deciding to volunteer."

Find a food pantry near you.

Bay City News Service and Patch editor Kristina Houck contributed to this report.