Everyone is a guest at Glide

Whether they are connecting to the daily free meals program, the walk-in center, or job training services, clients know they will find open hearts and helping hands to assist them with their most basic needs at Glide.

Glide is famous for the lines of clients that wrap around Ellis Street in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, waiting to receive the warm meals served every day of the year. Lee Shields, a security monitor at Glide, helps keep these lines calm.

"The main thing is to let them know that they’re welcome here, that they are guests,” he said.

The daily free meals program is a gateway for many of Glide’s clients to access other health and human services. Diane Moananu is the only parent for her six grandchildren. Glide’s nurturing and educational childcare programs help Moananu’s grandchildren stay off the streets.

“We live in housing projects and it's not safe,” says Moananu. “At Glide, once they cross inside the door I know they'll be safe, and that anything they learn, anything they experience, anything they do here is going to be positive. Believe me, if they had their choice, they would be here seven days a week."

The charismatic Reverend Cecil Williams and Advisor Janice Mirikitani have been at Glide’s helm for nearly half a century, developing programs and policies that offer dignity and opportunities to develop self-sufficiency to all who are willing to do what it takes to stand on their own two feet.

While clients from the addicted to the hungry and homeless may struggle with the indignities of poverty on the street, once inside the door they are treated with respect, as part of the extensive Glide network where everyone is a guest.