RECIEVE YANA DONATIONS:

1. Fill out the YANA Client Form below—you will receive a confirmation email.

2. Wait for a phone call from the Support Life Foundation to verify your account delivery details. You will get a call during regular business hours over the next 7-10 days.

3. Once your account details are verified, you will be added by us to our next Bi-Weekly YANA event which may be up to 2 weeks from your initial sign-up date.

VOLUNTEER IN YANA:

  1. Fill out the YANA volunteer form below– you may or may not receive a confirmation email.                                 

2. BE SURE to select the Delivery Center CLOSEST TO YOU!               
3. Please find all relevant information such as the address of the closest delivery center to you, and the available pickup times in the Volunteer Sign-Up sheet below.

Watch this video to learn more about our YANA deliveries!

Please note:

The YANA program is almost entirely volunteer driven, even our support staff are often volunteers, so while the Support Life Foundation does our best to make the process as painless as possible, it can still take some time so be patient with us

Hub Locations

Santa Clara

3003 Scott Blvd, Santa Clara, CA 95054

Our Santa Clara hub operates out of the Muslim Community Association [MCA]

• Last Mile Delivery to clients within 25 mile radius
• Fresh grocery pickup for clients

Oakland

1433 Madison St, Oakland, CA 94612

This hub operates in downtown Oakland out of the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California [ICCNC]

• Community Food Pantry for Fresh and Shelf stable grocery
• Fresh grocery pickup for clients
• Fresh food and meal kits for local homeless

Antioch

2001 W 10th St, Antioch, CA 94509

Our Antioch hub operates out of the Islamic Center of Antioch [Masjic AbuBakr]

• Last Mile Delivery to clients within 25-mile radius
• Fresh grocery pickup for clients

Brentwood

7701 Lone Tree Wy, Brentwood, CA 94513

Our Brentwood hub operates out of the Brentwood Muslim Community Center

• Last Mile Delivery to clients within 25-mile radius
• Fresh grocery pickup for clients

Richmond

1110 36th St, Richmond, CA 94804

This hub operates in  the Islamic Society Of West Contra Costa County [ISWCCC]

• Community Food Pantry for Fresh and Shelf-stable grocery
• Fresh grocery pickup for clients

Modesto

1445 N Carpenter Rd, Modesto, CA 95358

This hub operates in  the Islamic Center of Modesto

• Community Food Pantry for Fresh and Shelf stable grocery
• Fresh grocery pickup for clients
• Fresh food and meal kits for local homeless

Walnut Creek

2449 Buena Vista Ave, Walnut Creek, CA 94597

Our Antioch hub operates out of the Islamic Center of Walnut Creek [Darul-Islam Mosque]

• Last Mile Delivery to clients within 25-mile radius
• Fresh grocery pickup for clients

ORIGINS

You Are Not Alone originally started as a one-off delivery effort in April 2020, hoping to help those most deeply affected by the economic and health uncertainty of the global pandemic. We wanted to not just ensure that our communities were fed, we wanted to give them hope and let them know, you are not alone in this.

The first time we did this, our team and especially our Executive Director, Salah Elbakri, spent weeks negotiating with food merchants, importers, and wholesalers to get hold of food staples that were quickly flying off the shelves. Some sellers who had buy limits in place required us to get multiple team members and volunteers to individually cart around gathering supplies several times throughout the day. Our goal was to feed 600 families for a month. If Americans were fighting over toilet paper, imagine how much harder it was to secure foods like rice, flour, beans, canned goods, and cooking oil?

Our dedicated volunteers persevered despite CoVid-19 and collected 600 units of each item on our giant grocery list. The next step was to repack everything into boxes. We set up an assembly line at a local community center, the San Ramon Valley Islamic Center, and spent a weekend packing, taping, and stacking everything together for the final stretch: Delivery.

Due to CoVid-19 stay-home orders, not only were many families and individuals unable to leave their homes, many were also afraid to leave or simply did not have the means to get what they needed because of financial or logistic (food desert) circumstances. So we took names, we took numbers, and we recruited an amazing team of volunteers to take our 80lb boxes in their own cars and deliver them to each recipient’s door.

CORE DYNAMICS

What makes YANA sets it apart from similar programs?

1 – VOLUNTEER DRIVEN

We access and nurture a strong volunteer base by tapping into the existing goodness and desire to help those around us; communally lifting our society out of hardship in these trying times.

2 – EFFICIENCY

We make the physical tolling process worth the effort by making it as painless as possible for our volunteers and our clients.

3 – COMMUNITY

We build community trust, recognition, and loyalty at a grassroots level.

4 – TECHNOLOGY

We use technology to streamline the process while keeping overhead to a minimum.

5 – SCALABILITY

We create a system that is scalable to meet the growing client base. We try to minimize objectives needed to complete a full scale operation to insure it can be replicated with ease.

What is it Now?

More and more people are suffering from food scarcity, whether they live in food deserts or are under economic duress due to CoVid 19, individuals are having to choose between healthy food and living expenses.

So, the Support Life Foundation developed a community driven weekly food redistribution program powered by volunteers to get fresh food donations to the people who need it most, delivered to their door.

Coordinating across a vast network of localized distribution centers, distribution hubs, and volunteers, we have created system that gets necessary food stuffs to families and individuals faster through a range of services. We still have our core individual volunteer delivery, but now encourage individual and group pick-up from distribution centers as well.

We’ve gained many new partners in this process and are excited to say that we distribute over $2M of food per week, including fresh produce, meat, and dairy 3 times a week across the Bay.

Weekly

Our weekly food parcel is packaged and provided by our program partner, Second Harvest of Silicon Valley. This food parcel includes meat (fresh, frozen), dairy, fresh produce, and pantry items. The total weight of product delivered to each household is about 40lbs. Since this parcel is provided by Second Harvest to meet USDA food security requirements, Support Life Foundation does not have any control over what is packaged inside the parcels. The food is meant to meet federal health guidelines and not specific dietary needs. The recipient must take their own precautions for any allergies or dietary restrictions by reading the food labels.

Quarterly

Our quarterly food parcel is comprised of ethnic imported food products that many immigrant families depending on the regular weekly delivery may not be able to get. This included products such as rice, tea, masa harina, olive oil, lentils, and more. Support Life Foundation purchases these products from wholesalers and importers and packages them ourselves every 3 months into a large 50lb box for each family. These boxes are a special treat for our clients!

Seasonally

Our seasonal and holiday food parcels are whole meat and poultry that meet Halal requirements for many of our Muslim recipients that otherwise cannot always enjoy the proteins provided in the USDA standard weekly parcels. For now, we make these deliveries for Eid-al-Adha and Thanksgiving. We hope to add more holidays as our program grows!

Support this Program!

Support this program by donating here! We want to keep YANA running and serve as many people as possible!

Get YANA Deliveries!

Our Community Food Share is open to all!