Longtime Hope’s Corner volunteer John Riemenschnitter has been hired as the community service organization’s first executive director.
Riemenschnitter, who served as president of the board of directors since November of 2023, said his hiring aligned with an effort to expand services in laundry, hunger and personal health.
“We will continue to look for ways to serve our community as a whole and even different demographics who are in need of food. We really want to expand and broaden our impact in Mountain View and the surrounding community,” he said in a phone interview.
Riemenschnitter is the co-founder and former leader of The Highway Community, which has a church on Miramonte Avenue, from 2000-2023.
He began his service as a volunteer at Hope’s Corner in 2020, just before the start of the pandemic, spurred to assist the unhoused living in their cars. Volunteering every Saturday morphed into Riemenschnitter running the Wednesday meals. He took a seat on the board in 2023.
“I committed for eight weeks, and now I’ve done it for more than five years. It’s just evolved very organically,” he said. “One of [the] things I love about Hope’s Corner is that it’s built on volunteers. That’s a heartbeat we really want to preserve.”
Hope’s Corner, founded in 2011, is located at 748 Mercy St., Mountain View. The organization has an annual budget of approximately $763,800, a staff of eight part-time employees and nearly 1,000 volunteers.
Hope’s Corner began serving free meals on Saturdays in downtown Mountain View in 2011 as an all-volunteer joint ministry between Los Altos United Methodist and Mountain View Trinity Churches. It was incorporated as an independent nonprofit in 2015 and serves meals and provides shower and laundry services on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. The organization also offers meal deliveries to unhoused Mountain View residents living in vehicles on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
From January through September 2025, Hope’s Corner provided 1,594 unique individuals with services (not including deliveries or off-site services). Of the guests who participated in the meal program in 2025, 63% were adults, 34% were seniors and 3% were youth. Of those, 53% were unhoused.
First up in the new year is the expansion of laundry resources – the Hope’s Corner site is upgrading from one washer and dryer to at least four washers and dryers, he said.
Riemenschnitter sees his hiring as a testament to Hope’s Corner augmenting their social role – but also the concern that need in the community is growing.
“It is indicative of an ongoing need that has gone beyond the pandemic,” he said. “Our guests don’t have to qualify for services. We serve not only the unhoused community, but also anyone can come to get a meal.”
Founding board member Leslie Carmichael said the board staff were excited for Riemenschnitter to take on the role.
“After we had worked for weeks to create a job description that addresses Hope’s Corner’s needs for an executive director at this stage in its evolution, we realized we had the perfect candidate right under our noses,” she said.
