What Spinsters are Thankful for this Year: Good Food and an Inspiring Partnership

By Lauren Drewniany, SOSF PR Co-Chair

As we get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends and loved ones, the Spinsters of San Francisco (SOSF) want to take a moment to share what we are thankful for this year: our nonprofit partner La Cocina.

F&B: Voices from the Kitchen - Matriarchy, November 8, 2018 - Photo courtesy of SOSF Member, Amy Tam.

La Cocina is a nonprofit business incubator working with talented, working class food entrepreneurs who are predominantly women from communities of color and immigrant communities. SOSF could not be more thankful for the opportunity to support a nonprofit that closely aligns with our core value, empowering women. In addition to volunteering at fun-filled La Cocina events and tasting dishes from La Cocina’s chefs, our partnership has also provided a unique opportunity for members of SOSF to grow individually through 1:1 volunteer to entrepreneur matches. Through La Cocina’s 1:1 mentorship volunteering program, Spinsters are able to contribute their professional skills to aspiring food entrepreneurs as they develop their businesses concepts.

As Thanksgiving is often a time to reflect on the past year, we’d like to share some of our favorite moments volunteering with La Cocina.

SF Street Food Festival, October 13, 2018

First up, La Cocina’s annual San Francisco Street Food Festival. Did you know that each year, 30+ of the Bay Area’s talented food entrepreneurs gather on one day to showcase the most delicious array of dishes in the largest street food fest in San Francisco? At the festival, Spinsters got the chance to meet and support the talented entrepreneurs La Cocina serves (and try platefuls of delicious food throughout the day!). The event celebrated and promoted women, immigrant and POC-owned food businesses. Over fifty Spinsters showed up in full force to volunteer as La Cocina brand ambassadors, soliciting donations and getting our hands dirty in everything from pre-event set-up, to working the bar and breaking down at the end of the event. The chefs’ passion for their food was contagious. And the FOOD! From true southern style fried chicken to nepalese momo dumplings to arabic flatbreads to boozy cheesecake, Spinsters left with hearts (and stomachs) full, grateful to take part in the festival.

Our second volunteer opportunity was at La Cocina’s F&B: Voices from the Kitchen. This event provided a platform for La Cocina chefs to tell their own stories live on stage alongside some of the food industry’s most beloved and respected writers and chefs. Not only did Spinsters have the chance to listen to incredible stories, but the event also included a roaming cocktail hour that featured delicious bites from the chefs of La Cocina. In addition to acquainting ourselves with the different La Cocina chefs, Spinsters could be found checking in attendees, sharing information on how to become a La Cocina member, and testing out our bartending skills.

F&B: Voices from the Kitchen - Matriarchy, November 8, 2018 - Photo courtesy of SOSF Member, Amy Tam.

“From my first introduction to the Spinsters volunteer network, I knew we were in for an exciting year ahead. Every Spinster I’ve met has been full of energy, kindness and an eagerness to make her community a better place. La Cocina is grateful for the opportunity to leverage the support of this talented group of women in service of greater equity and economic opportunity for everyone.”

— La Cocina’s Development and Communications Manager, Jessica Mataka

SOSF Members volunteer at F&B: Voices from the Kitchen - Matriarchy, November 8, 2018 - Photo courtesy of SOSF Member, Amy Tam.

F&B: Voices from the Kitchen - Matriarchy, November 8, 2018 - Photo courtesy of SOSF Member, Amy Tam.

F&B: Voices from the Kitchen - Matriarchy, November 8, 2018 - Photo courtesy of SOSF Member, Amy Tam.

SOSF Members assemble La Cocina holiday gift boxes - our next volunteer shift is coming in December!

Coming up next, Spinsters and La Cocina will put on our elf hats to take on the holidays by assembling La Cocina’s holiday gift boxes and helping run their annual Tamalada, a tamale making class where guests leave with tamales to bring home to share with their families over the holidays. Interested in purchasing a La Cocina Gift Box for a loved one? Check out their gift box options ranging from $35-$100 on their online store. 100% of your purchase supports the growth of immigrant and women-owned businesses.

We can’t wait to see all that is in store for our partnership in 2019 (like our upcoming Legacy Benefit fundraiser for La Cocina at the Fairmont on February 23rd!) and we look forward to sharing those moments with you.

Wishing you and yours a very happy and healthy holiday season from all the women of Spinsters of San Francisco.

SF Street Food Festival - Matriarchy, October 13, 2018

Psst, interested in supporting La Cocina? Get involved by signing up to become a member, purchasing a La Cocina gift box for friends and family over the holidays or signing up to volunteer 1:1 with a La Cocina business owner!

A Look into Spinsters’ Professional Development: Book Club and Skill-Building Workshops

As Spinsters of San Francisco (SOSF) has been around for almost 90 years, the role of women in the workplace has transformed. In addition to being a women’s philanthropic and social organization, Spinsters have embraced a focus on professional development to support members’ ever-growing careers.  SOSF has traditionally been an organization where members can volunteer and raise funds for important grantee-partners in our San Francisco community as well as create lifelong friendships. With this new professional development pillar added to the organization, members have a more formal place to share ideas with other driven, successful women and build skills to help them meet their goals.

To support this initiative, SOSF created a Professional Development Committee, co-chaired by Claire Callahan and Marisa Corona, to organize a quarterly book club and skill building workshop series for members to participate in throughout the year. The Committee focuses on topics that are relevant across professional fields such as public speaking, work-life balance, mindfulness and creative problem solving.

Quarterly Book Club

“To live the lives we truly want and deserve, and not just the lives we settle for, we need a Third Metric, a third measure of success that goes beyond the two metrics of money and power, and consists of four pillars: well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving.”

— Arianna Huffington, Thrive

On February 1, 2018 the Professional Development Committee hosted a book club meeting featuring Arianna Huffington’s Thrive. Arianna’s book is a personal account of the publishing giant’s journey towards finding a new metric for success that goes beyond money and power and prioritizes health, learning, amazement and community. Spinsters had an engaging discussion about how to embrace career highs and lows, align careers with values, and prioritize self-care.

“The small group setting allowed us to get personal. I loved how every story about the highs and lows of life-career integration resonated with everyone in the room.”

— SOSF Member, Alexandra Casas

In April, the book club reconvened to discuss Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All by Tom and David Kelley. Claire Callahan, a second year member, was struck by how often people misunderstand creativity and its importance in problem solving.  “I truly enjoyed talking with fellow Spinsters in the early to mid stages of their careers to explore what creativity actually is, and how we can all embrace it in our work, whether you work in a stereotypical creative field or a more analytical one. Through our discussion, it became clear that whether you worked in social media or finance, creativity plays an important role in the work you do, and there are things you can do to build creativity like any other skill.”

Later this year, the Professional Development Book Club will discuss Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office: Unconscious Mistakes Women Make that Sabotage their Careers by Lois P. Frankel. The Committee looks forward to an engaging discussion about the challenges women face in the workplace and how to overcome them.

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Workshop Series

Public Speaking Workshop Training with SOSF Member, Kelsey Luoma - Photo courtesy of SOSF Member, Alexandra Casas

As an organization, we believe in learning from one another.  Fourth year Spinster, Kelsey Luoma, led the Public Speaking Workshop on February 6, 2018. Public speaking can often be a daunting experience, but Kelsey broke down how to make it a breeze! Pulling from her experiences training executives on effective communication at Decker Communications, Kelsey shared important concepts and tools to strengthen members’ public speaking skills. She emphasized the importance of using pauses and gestures to punctuate speech, and encouraged workshop attendees to practice public speaking often to gain confidence and self awareness.

Spinsters then paired up for several activities in engaging audiences and being effective listeners. Members also shared their challenges and gave each other advice from their different professional backgrounds, ranging from speaking on panels to removing qualifiers from our speech, to how best to prepare for a successful presentation. Listening to other members’ reflections was inspiring to watch. Each member brought valuable experience and advice to each other across a spectra of careers and experience.

Later this Spring, the Committee will host two additional skill building workshops. The next workshop will be on May 12th on Mindfulness to help members mindfully connect to their work, their teams, and achieve their long-term goals. The final workshop of the year will be a two night SQL training on queries hosted at Google.

Interested in learning more about our professional development work? Learn more about becoming a member here.