During the spring of 2020, Nikhil wanted to help the community of San Diego during the COVID pandemic. He noticed that restaurants were having a good amount of leftovers due to their lack of business. Due to this, he contacted Panera Bread in Carmel Valley to see if they were willing to donate their leftover bread and pastries. Nikhil planned to bring these pastries to various hospitals, as well as donate the bread to homeless shelters. Thankfully, Panera partnered with Nikhil in an effort to help the hospitals and homeless shelters. This started Community Cares San Diego (CCSD).

Since then, CCSD has donated bread and pastries to 10 different hospital departments and 4 homeless shelters in San Diego County. We currently bring about 5 pounds of bread and pastries to homeless shelters per week. In total, we have made over 75 trips to homeless centers and provided them with food. We realize that there are individuals in San Diego County that are not fortunate to have food, and we are doing our part to help them survive.

Community Cares would only be possible with the donations of Panera Bread Carmel Valley. We are very thankful that Panera chose to work with us, and gave us a chance to help our community. Currently, we pick up the bread and pastries from Panera on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evening.

We have also partnered with PATH (People Assisting The Homeless). PATH has homeless shelters/apartments across San Diego County, and we have helped provide them with food to feed their residents. On every Saturday, we bring the weekly bread and pastries to a PATH location.