community spotlight coming together to deliver dine11 sf

community spotlight: dine11 sf

These family friendships, forged at SFFS, have lasted years—and grown into something even greater in the face of crisis.

by Jenny Johnston, SFFS Parent ‘28

It was March 2020, the beginning of COVID-19 shutdowns, when Nikki Pearl started firing off emails. A wellness consultant and SFFS alumni parent, Pearl and her daughter had spent time transporting meals for Dine11, an LA nonprofit that purchases meals from Los Angeles restaurants hit hard by the pandemic and delivers them to frontline health workers. Those deliveries sparked an idea. Why not launch a similar effort in San Francisco?

In her emails, Pearl pitched her idea, asking for help. Three people stepped up. All three—Katie Morford, Frances Sanahuja, and Lourdes Cordero—were fellow SFFS moms.

Working quickly, the four women put their backgrounds in finance, marketing, nutrition, wellness, and motherhood to work in organizing the effort. Dine11 SF would be similar to the LA model, but focus instead on feeding hungry families in at-risk neighborhoods. “We wanted to get meals into the hands

Above: Dine11 SF’s efforts and accomplishments have been featured on numerous news outlets. Previous page: SFFS alumna Ella Pearl ‘15 helps out with a Dine11 delivery.

“It shows you how important San Francisco Friends School has been in our lives,” reflected Pearl. “It’s informed a lot of decisions we’ve made and cemented friendships with people who share common values.”

of our city’s most vulnerable,” explained Pearl.

The team tapped their personal networks to gather donations. They also connected with community organizations serving low-income families, identified local restaurant partners, and strummed up dozens of volunteers. Just 10 days after their first meeting, they were delivering their first meals. Said Pearl: “It all happened incredibly fast.”

It also exceeded expectations. In 10 weeks, the four women raised $125,000, primarily from individual donors. They used those funds to purchase more than 1,000 nourishing meals per week from local restaurants, helping keep their doors open and staff employed. In total, Dine11 SF delivered 11,000 meals to grateful families experiencing hardship and hunger. “It’s not just about getting calories into people,” said Katie Morford. “It’s about caring for them.”

The Dine11 SF team hadn’t planned on operating beyond those initial 10 weeks. But COVID-19 didn’t dissipate, and the need grew more urgent. So they started attending the city’s Food Security Task Force meetings. They honed down their plan to include just 10 community organizations and 10 restaurants—specifically, small neighborhood “mom and pops” owned by women and people of color. And they launched a new round of fundraising, hoping to raise $150,000 both from individual donors and from philanthropic and corporate partners. “There is so much need out there right now. The more money we get, the more we can do,” said Morford.

Whatever they do, the San Francisco Friends School community will play a role in it. Many SFFS families have donated generously to Dine11 SF. Lots of SFFS students and alums—including Ella and Ruben Pearl, April Hart, Lily Daniel, Virginia and Rosie Morford, Zoe Grumbach, Andres and Rami Safa, Cristian Blake, and Antonio Sanahuja—have volunteered with the organization, delivering meals and helping with social media. Recently, another SFFS mom, Vicki Penny, signed on as Dine11 SF’s development director.

“It shows you how important San Francisco Friends School has been in our lives,” reflected Pearl. “It’s informed a lot of decisions we’ve made and cemented friendships with people who share common values.” It’s fitting, then, that the school’s Quaker testimony this year is community. “It’s been a gift to feel like we can offer up something at this really weird, tough time,” added Pearl. “We’re grateful we have that opportunity to help.”

To learn more about Dine11 SF, please visit dine11.org/sf. •