Volunteer

Volunteers are crucial to St. Anthony’s Padua Dining Room operation. It would be impossible to assist the hungry without the help of volunteers who help prepare and serve a nourishing lunch and more, six days a week year around.

Currently we have over 150 enthusiastic and hardworking volunteers who come from many different backgrounds. Teachers, retired professionals, clergy, homemakers, businesspeople and students are all part of our volunteer corps. Please join us to prep food, serve lunch or to assist with fund-raising efforts.

The basic tasks volunteers undertake at the Dining Room on a daily basis are:
Preparation and serving the daily meal. From about 08:30 AM to 1:00 PM we work on the daily meal service.  
Produce Sorting and Processing. We receive donations of large amounts of packaged and fresh food, produce, bread etc.  All incoming foodstuffs must be inspected, checked for expiration dates, for wholesomeness and for quality.
Clean‐up/ Janitorial. We wash, clean, and sanitize equipment, empty garbage, separate and process compostable materials, recyclable materials etc.  The amount of cleanup for 500 meals a day is large!

Interested in volunteering?  
Please email paduadiningroom@gmail.com from your preferred contact email, or call our volunteer coordinator at (650) 365-9664.




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During the Holiday Season many company groups, service organizations, clubs, and neighborhood groups wish to give back to the community and to help our less fortunate neighbors.  We have limited numbers of positions available for serving at the Holiday meals of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. (These need to be scheduled the morning of the first day of the month of the Holiday, e.g., November 1 for Thanksgiving Day).

We can always use frozen turkeys. A Turkey Drive among your members is another way to contribute, without having to schedule a morning to be on‐site at St. Anthony’s Dining Room.

We distribute Holiday food bags at Thanksgiving and Christmas. These food bags are a more complete meal for a family of 2 to 4, and are supplemented by the fresh vegetables and fruit we have available on that day. We have prepared a list of items from Costco that we can use for volunteer groups to assemble up to 700 complete meal dinner bags for each holiday.

New socks and gently used warm outer wear are always needed by our guests at this time of the year. Organizing and conducting a sock drive or warm coat drive among your membership, then bringing the results here and having lunch with our guests is a nice alternate.

Each year we collaborate with the Menlo Park Fire District and other Fire Fighters for our Christmas Toy give‐away program. We need new, unwrapped toys for babies to preteens for the 2000 or so families we assist. The Fire Fighters put out and pick up collections containers for this toy drive, and groups can arrange for collection of their assembled toys.  

Groups may schedule a day of service, Monday through Friday by e‐mailing to paduadiningroom@gmail.com (preferred) or calling the Dining Room at (650) 365‐9664 and leaving a message.
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