What do Street Roots, Planned Parenthood and What’s the Scoop? ice cream all have in common? We all support offering crucial services to people experiencing poverty and the larger community, and we all love ice cream. Unfortunately, we also share the experience of being targeted by right-wing anti-abortion activists.
During the past month, What’s the Scoop? in North Portland has come under attack by right-wing anti-abortion activists who believe that supporting Planned Parenthood is offensive.
Why would anti-abortion activists target a local ice cream shop?
What’s the Scoop? supports local nonprofits by encouraging the public to buy pints of ice cream and donating a portion of the proceeds to the nonprofits. It’s a win-win for What’s the Scoop? ice cream and partnering nonprofits. Last month’s partner was Planned Parenthood.
“When we started the business we always envisioned that giving back to the community would be part of the business plan,” says Jodie Ostrovsky, owner of What’s the Scoop? “I came up with the fundraising program as a way to let us contribute to the organizations we support. I knew it would be a long time before we could write a big check, but the fundraising program still lets us make a significant contribution.”
This month, What’s the Scoop? will be supporting Street Roots.
In 2010, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and the Archdiocese of Portland pulled between $5,000 and $10,000 worth of annual support from Street Roots for listing Planned Parenthood in our Rose City Resource guide.
The Rose City Resource is a pocket-sized booklet listing 300-plus resources for people experiencing homelessness and poverty. Street Roots publishes more than 160,000 guides annually, to be distributed to nearly 400 community institutions.
Street Roots published an investigative report two months after the church pulled its funding from the organization. The report revealed that dozens of CCHD-funded organizations had been investigated and labeled “anti-Catholic” by a reform movement. Street Roots was one of those groups. The radical groups had compelled the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to reconsider how it funds community organizing.
Not long after the Catholic Church pulled funding from Street Roots, Providence Health Care System, a Catholic hospital, followed suit by declining to give Street Roots an annual sponsorship and hygiene items for vendors. Sources also told Street Roots that the hospital giant asked emergency room doctors, nurses and social workers to stop distributing the guide to patients, specifically because there were abortion services listed in the guide.
Besides losing funding and getting bombarded with e-mails and online comments by anti-abortion activists, some amazing things came from the ordeal. One example was the story of a group of nuns secretly collecting money among their peers and donating it to Street Roots. Another was watching the community come out to support both Street Roots and Planned Parenthood.
To this day the Catholic Church has never apologized to Street Roots or attempted to partner with the organization.
That hasn’t stopped Street Roots from continuing to publish Catholic-based services in the resource guide and partnering with local parishes who continue to serve the poor.
Street Roots isn’t the judge or the jury; we simply want people to have access to information and services that are available to them, including all faith-based services and services that offer health care, including abortions. We believe information is power, regardless of your religious or political beliefs. We also firmly believe in a woman’s right to choose and having access to health care.
Readers now have a chance to support both Street Roots and What’s the Scoop? for continuing to make a brave stand and doing what’s right for our community. We also encourage you to give a donation to Planned Parenthood in solidarity.
“We support Planned Parenthood and Street Roots as part of our overall program to give back to the community that supports us,” says Ostrovsky. “More specifically, they are both organizations that do good and important work by providing resources to people in need.”
To order your pint of ice cream and support Street Roots, go to street-roots.myshopify.com.
Together, we can make a difference, one pint of ice cream at a time. More importantly, we can all stand together, along with Planned Parenthood, and commit to supporting women’s health and the health of our entire community. It’s a win-win.
Israel Bayer is the executive director of Street Roots. You can reach him at israel@streetroots.org or follow him on Twitter @israelbayer.