July 2021 • A Common Ground

MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR

A COMMON GROUND

As most of you know our pantry is located in the Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhood in Southeast Portland.  The area represents 10,137 households.  It has the largest Asian population in Portland making up approximately 17.89% of the city’s population.  The pantry boarders the Lents neighborhood which is extremely ethnically diverse and is the home of Asian, Russian/Eastern European, and Latino immigrants.  Our pantry, on a weekly basis serves them all.  Of course, mixed in with all this is the houseless community and other BIPOC community members.

The challenge has been to find common ground in the choices we provide for everyone, so the different families feel supported and included.

Then, it happened this past month. PLANTS GALORE!

We are excited to announce that our latest partner, Serres Farms in Oregon City provided one of the most exciting events that has taken place at our pantry. This huge nursery decided to begin donating both vegetable and flowering plants to the pantry. Everyone wanted plants. Whether you are Asian or BIPOC, Latino or Russian plants crossed over all the ethnicities and filled the campus with fun and excitement. The plants helped build the sense of community and trust among us. We want to say thank you again to Patty and Dan from Serres Farms and their dedication to our community.

Thanks also goes to you!

All of this is made possible through your on-going donations to the work our pantry is doing to ensure no one goes hungry in our community. Partnering with us you bring these very diverse communities together and ultimately build for our families a sense of trust and comfort knowing we all belong to each other.

Last month our pantry served 1128 households representing 3608 individuals.

Pivoting from that also this month we partnered with Division Midway Alliance to provide food for 36 of the families they serve. 

To accomplish this, we needed to translate our on-line ordering form into Arabic so that these Iraqi families would be able to go online and choose the foods that would best meet the nutritional needs of their families. 

Here is another instance where your continued support of our pantry gives us the ability to meet the needs that arise not only in our neighborhood, but in the greater Portland metro area.  There are hungry families all around us, each and every time one of these families reaches out to us, we have not turned any of them away.  You help make that happen.

We welcome your continued partnership. When neighbors support neighbors everyone wins.
When families can pay their utility bills because they do not have to worry about where they are going to get nutritious foods, families win.
When the youngest child to the oldest adult can go to bed well fed, we all win.

Your partnership with us helps us all to win and provides a solid consistent anchor for families when they are facing difficult times.
Your continued donations makes all this possible.