Glide Hands Out Over 1,600 Christmas Eve Meals To Homeless During Holiday Tradition
Bay City News Service
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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)
Three thousand pounds of prime rib from San Francisco s House of Prime Rib have gone toward helping Tenderloin-based organization Glide with their efforts to feed the homeless over the holidays.
On Christmas Eve, Glide hosted its 27th annual Christmas Eve Brunch, handing out some 1,400 holiday meals outside of the Glide Foundation at 330 Ellis St.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, volunteers this year handed out meals in takeout containers. In addition to broccoli, mashed potatoes and pastries, the meals also include prime rib streak, donated by House of Prime Rib and its owner Joe Betz.
The meals included lemon butter broccoli, mash potatoes, dinner rolls and eclairs. I’ve been coming here for 20 years, said one guest named Denise. With our economy like it is, unemployment and our country so strapped, this is a lovely meal they give to us.
Normally, the church would have about 500 volunteers to help with the meal distribution, but not this year. Still, they were able to get meals to nearly 1,700 people on Thursday, and they were bracing for the possibility of many more to feed in the new year. Once the evictions start happening, we’ll see a whole new wave of people who will need our help. So we’re getting ready for that, Glide Chief Strategy Officer Jean Cooper said.
How SF s House of Prime Rib ensures the needy have a very Merry Christmas
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A prime rib lunch served at GLIDE.Alain McLaughlin
So many things have changed during the pandemic, but a few have remained the same: On Christmas Eve, the city’s food-insecure population will feast on 2,000 pounds of prime rib.
“Prime rib is definitely our community’s favorite meal of the year, by far,” says George Gundry, GLIDE’s meals director.
It’s part of a yearly partnership between GLIDE and the House of Prime Rib, in which the restaurant donates a literal ton of beef along with signature sides like honey lemon broccoli, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls and eclairs. The tradition began 27 years ago, after House of Prime Rib owner Joe Betz read an article by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen that included a tally of how much meat was served in a day.