These Robots Are Making Meals for a Nonprofit in San Francisco's Tenderloin A nonprofit in the city's most troubled district has turned to robotic meal prep tech to make up for a dearth of human volunteers. Project Open Hand, a nonprofit founded in 1985 by local grandmother and HIV-awareness advocate Ruth Brinker, prepares and packages meals to meet the diverse nutritional requirements of people who need them. The effort began in response to the AIDS crisis, but the nonprofit has since expanded the meals it makes for people with conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease. But it takes many people to make these meals, and Project Open Hand has struggled to entice volunteers to help fill the meal kits. The organization is housed in a four-story building in San Francisco's Tenderloin district.