San Francisco woman’s nonprofit feeds unhoused with dignity, gourmet touch
By Sharon Chin
Make a sandwich. Make a difference.
It’s what a San Francisco woman does all year long to feed the unsheltered in San Francisco neighborhoods. When Joy D’Ovidio packs lunches for the unsheltered, she pours her heart into each one.
“We want to show our love for them,” she said.
D’Ovidio shares her love through food. She began her current community service back in 2016 on the day after President Trump’s election. She and her husband, Gene, wanted to do something as an act of resistance that would help their San Francisco community.
“And so my husband and I made 12 sandwiches and went down to Civic Center, and we handed out the 12 lunches in three minutes,” D’Ovidio said.
That inspired the D’Ovidios to start A Meal with Dignity in 2017 out of their home. The nonprofit gathers volunteers to prepare and give away lunches to between 30 and 150 unhoused people a month in the city.
“We’re giving them the dignity of letting them know that we care and that they have value,” she said.
As managing director of the nonprofit, D’Ovidio puts great thought into the meal. For example, the food must be easy to chew, like fruit that’s ripe.
“We use a brioche bun because sometimes when you are shelterless, you lose your teeth and you’re able to absorb that sandwich,” she said.
Drawing from her background in the specialty food industry, D’Ovidio creates sandwiches that you’d get at a nice restaurant, with healthy, organic ingredients, such as homemade pesto, avocado, tomatoes, and arugula.
The meals are funded by donations.
“All of this is organic because the dignity is giving the best of the best to the least,” she explained.
Board member Disney Petit says that at age 79, D’Ovidio could be enjoying a quiet retirement, but instead she’s serving others and energizing volunteers to join her, from schoolchildren to corporate employees.
“To have that persistence and passion throughout that whole stage of your life, I am inspired by, and I hope that I have even a quarter of that vitality that she has at her age,” Petit said.
Volunteers distribute the lunches they make to people living on the streets and in their RVs in the South of Market district, who express their thanks with words and high-fives.
“It’s always one of gracious gratitude,” Gene D’Ovidio said as he handed out lunches. “Many of them are trying to work and trying to survive.”
“And that’s what guides us, because there by the grace of God go us, and we go one inch, and we could all be homeless,” Joy D’Ovidio added.
