We are stronger together.
This has been our perspective from the very first day Project Open Hand began making healing meals with love for our clients in 1985. It continues today as we nurture decades-old partnerships with those who share our mission to serve the most vulnerable; and, as we build new relationships with strategic partners in medical nutrition research and healthcare.
This year we celebrate some incredible and hard won “firsts.”
Our research partnership with UCSF Global Health Sciences resulted in hard data that proves our model has a significant health impact on clients’ lives. You’ll see that in the Annual Report. And that data not only confirms the efficacy of our model of care, it also opens doors for expansion in services and funding. We launched our first-ever public health program with the San Francisco Department of Public Health and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital to address acute nutrition needs of the city’s most vulnerable hospitalized individuals. The integration of our programs into ZSFGH will not only demonstrate the functionality within the public health system but will mean more individuals benefit from our proven nutrition
model.
While pushing the innovation forward, we also nurture our core. This year we deepened our relationships with the City of San Francisco to address the significant needs of our aging HIV populations. And we engaged other community organizations in Oakland, including the Alameda County Community Food Bank, to knit together a tighter safety net of fundamental services for our significantly marginalized breast cancer and Diabetes clients. For Project Open Hand to address the growing medical nutrition needs of our community, we must continue to grow.
In 2016, we opened our doors to new clients at a rate never seen before. We also ended our fiscal year with the highest revenue in our history and a strong surplus for investment into our staff and infrastructure.
With this momentum, we continue to explore opportunities and think critically as the challenges our clients face grow every day and, as leaders in this work, we can push process and policy to meet those challenges head-on.
Sincerely,
Mark Ryle, LCSW, CEO & Carmela D. Krantz, Chair, Board of Directors
