For over a decade, the Self Help Hunger Program has shown up at Jasper P. Driver Plaza — the same North Oakland where the Black Panthers once first started — to make sure our neighbors eat. Last year alone, we rescued and distributed 82 tons of food that would have gone to landfill, brought stress-relief massage to hundreds of people a month, and organized alongside 15 community partner organizations fighting for housing and healthcare access.

Right now, we're facing a gap. Federal cuts to nutrition, healthcare, and childcare programs have pushed the number of people who count on us from 250 to over 1,500 — and a grant we're counting on to stabilize us doesn't arrive until December. We need to raise $39,000 to bridge the next three months: to pay our food pantry coordinator, keep the food coming, and keep our doors open without interruption.

We are the community we serve. Our board is made up of the same North Oakland and South Berkeley residents who rely on this program — mostly Black and Brown women who have kept this work alive since Auntie Frances Moore founded it in the tradition of Black Panther community self-reliance.

Every dollar keeps someone's weekly produce bag full, keeps the lights on at the one place in the neighborhood that doesn't ask questions before it helps. Thank you for standing with us through this gap.