Project Open Hand

Project Open Hand is a California nonprofit organization that provides medically tailored meals and groceries to elderly and homebound people in San Francisco and Alameda County.

[4] Tom Nolan, executive director from 1994 to 2011, began expanding the organization's mission to include senior citizens and people with serious illnesses other than AIDS and chronic conditions such as diabetes.

[8][9] Nolan was succeeded by Kevin Winge,[10] who expanded food pickup services from those with HIV or breast cancer to people with other conditions including diabetes and heart disease,[10][11][12] followed in 2016 by Mark Ryle.

[14] In 2014–16, Project Open Hand participated in a study by the University of California, San Francisco of the role of nutritious food in supporting the sick;[11][15][16] since its institution in June 2017, it has played a major role in Food is Medicine, a three-year state-funded pilot project to provide medically tailored meals to chronically ill people receiving assistance through Medi-Cal, the California version of Medicaid.

[4] As of August 2011[update] it was receiving $5.6 million a year in donations and government funding and serving almost 2,600 meals a day, to seniors and people with cancer and other serious illnesses in addition to AIDS, as well as providing groceries.