Article by Natalie Mark

Having Hope and Mercy

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y a s f t d o s a f r k r rep a the aring hot bre guests early Satu

Driving down a beautiful neighborhood near Downtown Mountain View on an early Saturday morning, lies the Los Altos United Methodist Church. Peering into this church, one would feel a bustling atmosphere filled with nearly 20 masked volunteers running about the church and the parking lot. Some wear green aprons, others red, and some, no apron at all.

There is an assembly line of people packing bags full of snacks and food, cooking, or running carts from the kitchen to the parking lot.

Moving into the parking lot, there are tents pitched up where people are handing out drinks and food to people lined up around the block.

This is Hope’s Corner.

H

ope’s Corner is a noble community-service organization, full of volunteers, that has learned to adapt and continue their positive impact by serving meals to underprivileged people, even during the Covid 19 pandemic.

Sharon Langlois Personal interview Due to the pandemic, many of the operations of Hope’s Corner have changed. All volunteers are required to wear masks, and there are plenty of extras for volunteers and guests who do not have one. Instead of lining up right at the entrance to the church, guests are lined along the outside of the church, on Mercy Street. One of the volunteers, Sharon Langlois, informed that “One main thing that we used to do is serve food indoors and people would dine inside the sanctuary of the church. During the pandemic, we decided to move everything outside. So now it was food to go.” Chairs are set up, still 6 feet apart, all over the parking lot for people to dine, where before, people dined inside the church. There are volunteers handing out coffee, orange juice, and some hot oatmeal. Another large change for Hope’s Corner is that, “we have RV people that we feed” (Langois). There are volunteers who deliver meals to four RV sites around Mountain View. Hope’s Corner has transitioned into delivering meals to people in RVs, which nearly doubles its meal services, according to Mercury News.

Hope’s corner is a non-profit organization, run by 99% volunteers, providing food for anyone who wants a meal without any paperwork on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Even though Hope’s Corner is open two days out of the week, volunteers actually work multiple days to ensure that each service day runs as smoothly as possible. Vendors, many of whom are from local companies such as Apple and Google, drop off food on Fridays, and if those donations do not end up being enough volunteers on Friday will buy food themselves to prepare for Saturday dining. People on Friday receive the food and prepare it by washing and chopping vegetables and fruits. Many volunteers on Saturdays would serve food while the guests dined indoors together. One of the volunteers that can be seen working weekly is Alice Cota, who is on the board of directors of Hope’s Corner. In an interview with Cota, she stated that what makes Hopes Corner really unique against other organizations is that

“we do welcome everyone without any paperwork… and also we have a high repeat guest percentage.”

According to KQED, The Bay Area has the highest income inequality in California, so having this accessible organization is important to the community. Hope’s Corner believes that paperwork and forms can be a barrier for many individuals to receive their nutritional needs because many of them are wary of writing down personal information. Other soup kitchens in the area, however, do require paperwork and applications. Cota continued that Hope’s Corner would see “80% of our guests who return week after week” along with a high return volunteer count, as many of them mentioned how they believe that this service is extremely noble.

Cooking in the Kitchen

Sharon Langlois can be considered as one of those repeating volunteers.

Langlois started out as a food packager five years ago, where she and the assembly line of volunteers would place granola bars, apples, or cereal in bags for the guests. Langlois then started helping out in the kitchen, as kitchen volunteers were needed in order to successfully feed the 500 guests, then move on to be the kitchen coordinator. To feed all the guests, she mentioned how she had to arrive at Hope’s Corner at

“6:00 in the morning, pull out the food from the fridge, start putting it all in the ovens and from 6:00 all the way until maybe ten, I was cooking food the whole time.”

Moving inside to where all the food preparation is, we see multiple volunteers in the kitchen in an assembly line placing food in take out containers.

There are hot potato dishes, pasta, and cooked vegetables. Langlois and another volunteer, Mike Hacker, both stated that creating high quality food is important because Hope’s Corner wants to treat everyone “with dignity” (Hacker).

Eventually, the hot meals go out to the guests along with a bag filled with other snack items. All the volunteers are cheerful and charismatic— especially Mikey.

Mike Hacker interview at Hope’s Corner

Food Packaging Assembly Line

Alice Cota Interview

Mikey is both a guest and volunteer at Hope’s Corner who is always smiling and making conversation with guests. Mikey was kind enough to give an interview after he was done with his duties of wiping down chairs, tables, and bins. To keep up with the Covid Safety protocols, there are always volunteers taking turns with wiping down facilities.

Mikey shared about how he heard of Hope’s Corner roughly seven years ago because one of his friends had told him about it. Mikey and his friends used shower services and ate the provided food together. Mikey was homeless for a majority of his life, and happily showed us some of his belongings. He teared up as he talked about how the volunteers at Hopes Corner really do care about the people they serve, so much so that they even call themselves friends, “Mike Hacker, my friend Mike, he helped find my biological mom after 39 years of separation”. This exemplifies the type of relationships volunteers have with their guests, demonstrating the care they have for one another.

Mikey helping the outside set up

Mikey continued on about his love for Mountain View and the impact Hope’s Corner has had on his life—“I’m glad that I have the strength and the character to at least make a change and just to enjoy it” . Mikey believes that volunteering has helped save his life by giving him a purpose: to serve others in his community. With the Bay Area’s wealth disparity, Mikey can empathize with those hurting, which makes him believe in Hope’s Corner’s mission even more, “I’m grateful for this place because it gives me an opportunity to continue serving our community.” Silicon Valley is a place full of development and changes, where having an organization stay constant and true to its mission, is irreplaceable.

One of the biggest changes volunteers mentioned though, was the addition of the showers program and non-soupkitchen related services to one more day in the week. Hacker had included how Hope’s Corner has bike exchanges, hair cuts, and showers. Both Mikes hoped that there was more widespread knowledge about these programs so more individuals could partake in them if they choose to “…People are hurting out there. They don’t have they don’t even know about this place” (Hacker).

Although the mission is the same, many aspects of Hope’s Corner have varied. At the moment, children are not allowed to volunteer at Hope’s Corner out of safety precautions, which contrasts to how it was previously. Another large shift was that the number of volunteers had been almost halved, and those volunteers work twice as many hours. A lot has changed for Hope’s Corner due to the pandemic, so many volunteers and guests are looking to return back to normal, just like the rest of us.

Despite these changes, Hope’s Corner has still managed to maintain its magic.

As Langlois had said, “There are a lot of lonely people out there who just need someone to talk to… that’s what I’ve learned out of this. Is just to make sure that people know that they exist’’.

e A h t u t t h u or o b A

Natalie Mark is a Junior at Freestyle Academy in the 2021-2022 school year, taking English, Digital Media, and Film. Outside of school, Natalie is an intern for Stop AAPI Hate, where she uses a lot of her new skills from Freestyle for designing social media posts and presentations. In her free time, Natalie has always enjoyed running and playing cello, but as of recently, she has particularly enjoyed cooking and baking.