Meals on Wheels
After the results of the 2016 election, I started thinking about ways I could help communities around me and who might be feeling extra vulnerable. My friend Kristi is a social worker at Meals on Wheels San Francisco, and I asked if I could help tell their story for marketing and fundraising. She invited me to tag along on her client visits.
Most of the clients were homebound seniors but to me they were so much more! Each had decades of life experiences that they weren’t at all shy to talk about. For many of them, we were their only visitors. One client had been a Walgreens cashier, another a sailor, and one had been a porn star and even invited me to photograph her in her bedroom - which I politely declined and redirected her into her kitchen which was untouched since meals were delivered and cooking was not part of her routine.
Knowing a bit of my subject’s story makes the process of taking their portrait more interesting, and I think it’s reflected in the image too.