Project Open Hand

​Project Open Hand, which today feeds more than 2,500 sick and dying people, started in 1985 when Ruth Brinker made meals for her friends and neighbors who were "wasting" from AIDS. In Part 1, POH volunteer Dana Dawson takes us through that history, talking about how the operation that started in a residential home today serves healthy meals and groceries with the help of more than 125 volunteers like herself.

In Part 2, Dana is joined by four of her fellow volunteers who've become like a second family for one another. They talk about meeting through their volunteer work and what it means to them, as individuals and as a group.

We recorded this podcast in Bernal Heights in May 2019.

Photo, L–R: Jill Morrison, Lynn Wilkinson, Darryl Forman and Romo, Craig Smith, Dana Dawson, and Robert Pucci. Film photography by Michelle Kilfeather