Formerly Berkeley Food & Housing Project
Meet Andre Green, Meals Program Manager
Trained as a chef, and with thirty-five years of experience of making food for others, BFHP’s Meals Program Manager, Andre Green takes great pride in the meals he serves to our clients.
“My number one rule is don’t serve anything you wouldn’t eat yourself.”
His unique combination of culinary skills and his compassion for others is clear every day at our Dwight Way Center homeless shelters for men and women where we serve our community meal to our clients and other guests who have low-income, unemployed, and people experiencing homelessness.
“You never know who you are talking to,” says Andre. “I just try to be a help to the people. My part is food. I see some of the clients every day at the community meal, and we just try and meet them where they’re at. We want to serve fresh fruit and salad every day. I have a client that needs two servings of yogurt daily according to her doctor. So, I make sure she gets that.”
“We recently started doing Taco Tuesday a few weeks ago. The clients love it and so do I! It makes me feel good when the clients enjoy our food.”
As you may already know, BFHP has the longest running free, weekday Community Meal program in the City of Berkeley. Since COVID-19, our Community Meal program has expanded and food is served to-go, so that each person receives one hot meal to eat right away, and a bag lunch for later.
But the demand is growing. Even as our government funding support has stayed at the same level. In Fiscal Year 2020-21, in response to rising needs in our community due to the pandemic, we served over 63,000 meals to people experiencing food insecurity. We will expand our programs to serve the hungry even further in 2022 when we open the BFHP Hope Center: the largest affordable and homeless housing project in the City of Berkeley’s history.
This fall, we are launching a $1,000,000 Food Campaign that will allow us to reach even more Veterans, families, and others over the next few years. Will you join Andre, and all of us at BFHP, by helping us kick-off this ambitious program by making a donation today? You would be amazed at how far even a modest contribution can go to feeding someone every day. A more generous gift will go even further as we serve clients across six local counties.
Andre wants to say “thank you” to donors like you. He wants you to know “we couldn’t serve so many good and nutritious meals without your support.”