After two months, 41 sharing stories, 1,158 votes, and an intense round of judging, the results of our Share or Die Storytelling Contest are in.
An honorable mention in the writing category went to Sarah Choi’s story about starting Share to Care SF with a friend to feed the homeless nutritious meals with the extra cash made from sharing rides on Zimride.
Check our contest story channel for more stories and our book, Share or Die, for an even bigger collection of stories about sharing.
On a gorgeous San Francisco morning (really gorgeous, not the foggy, ironic kind), my best friend and I were catching up on the usual — travels, jobs, boys. We suddenly realized all we did as 20-something-year-olds was work and play. We wanted to start thinking about others and less about ourselves.
Around the same time, we started using a ride-sharing service called Zimride and made some good money selling seats in our cars. While it was nice to have some extra dough, we both realized that we didn’t really need it. Ride sharing introduced us to the world of sharing, which inspired us to take action with the funds.
The Share to Care SF project was born with a mission to share the things we own to benefit others. With the extra cash, we gather some friends and buy nutritious, nonperishable food, assemble packets, and hand them out to the homeless in San Francisco. The goal of Share to Care is not only to meet the immediate needs of the homeless, but also give hope to lifelong changes. Earlier this year, we took a Vayable Homelessness Walking Tour to learn about the reality of living on the streets in the city. In every food packet, you will find a short list of resources to shelters, kitchens, and addiction recovery programs in San Francisco.
The really amazing thing about this experience has been our interactions with people living on the street. One day, a group of friends met a woman with a sullen spirit. It was clear that she had faced many hardships in her life that harmed her both physically and emotionally. What you couldn’t see from the exterior was that this woman was a beautiful person. As we talked to her, we were able to give her prayer and affirmation of her beauty. And that meant so much more than a few granola bars and a can of V8 juice.
Since the start of the project, we’ve been encouraging our communities to start sharing and donating their extra cash to fund food packets. Our friends and families have shared not only their rides, but their couches and last season's dresses. Through this, we've been able to spread the word about Share to Care SF all the way from Los Angeles to Australia, and build over 250 food packets to feed the homeless.
