Last year, Project Open Hand served over 750,000 prepared meals and, by the end of 2010, the agency will have served over 15 million meals with love to people with HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, the homebound/critically ill, and seniors.  That’s a lot of food and you’re probably wondering how we do it.  Project Open Hand is lucky to have a team of amazing chefs on staff who passionately prepare meals for our clients every day.

Meet some of our chefs!

A true San Francisco native, Adrienne’s parents entertained a lot when she was growing up and she always enjoyed helping out in the kitchen more than the parties themselves. It seemed a natural progression to go into catering when she grew up and she had her own business, on and off, for 20 years. Adrienne came to Project Open Hand nine years ago and is now our Kitchen Manager, which means she’s responsible for everything that happens in the kitchen: supervising 26 staff people, ordering the food, planning the menus, overseeing the meal production and pitching in to get the meals out every day. Adrienne is also responsible for all the food that we serve at our special events: the Hand to Hand Luncheon, Avon Walk, Dessert First and more. She came to Open Hand in the first place because she wanted to be part of our mission of ‘meals with love’. And that’s what brings her back to the kitchen every day.

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Originally from Maine, Richard worked as a chef in kitchens on both coasts before settling in San Francisco and working, mainly in small French bistros, for almost 20 years. Also an actor and director, Richard came to learn more about Project Open Hand and to be attracted to our mission while performing in a play about HIV. He became interested in working here and joined Open Hand twelve years ago. Richard is responsible for the HIV meal production, as well as supervising volunteers in the kitchen and developing recipes and menus for Open Hand clients.