Break bread with us on Oct. 8 during the Street Roots Family Breakfast
The moment she walked in and those smells wafted through the air, it was a 180," Tina Drake told me, reminiscing about the mornings when Katherine Deumling would set up her cook stove and make breakfasts at Street Roots.
People were usually exhausted from braving the streets, but a home-cooked breakfast lifted everyone's spirits.
Until March, when she joined the staff, Tina was a longtime Street Roots vendor, often sitting at one of the tables herself, chatting with friends over coffee and Katherine’s special Street Roots Vendor Breakfast — frittata, pumpkin bread and fruit.
Street Roots has spent the past six months responding with creativity to champion people for whom housing is scarce within a pandemic and the fires. We’re proud of our response, and during our annual breakfast, we look forward to sharing some of these stories with you, our community.
But sometimes, particularly as we look ahead at winter, we do grieve the ways that we once piled into our office on those often rainy days, many people leaning their backpacks of worldly possessions against the office walls. Katherine’s breakfasts were such occasions, so we decided to do something about it — by bringing the breakfasts back, COVID-19 style
This year, our annual Street Roots Family Breakfast on Oct. 8 goes digital.
You can purchase a boxed breakfast to pick up or have delivered to you. The breakfasts will be cooked by Stone Soup, a nonprofit supporting unhoused people in developing culinary skills (and our neighbor in Old Town!) Just make sure you purchase the breakfast by Oct. 1.
STREET ROOTS NEWS: Stone Soup PDX cooks up life skills for second chances
And then the morning of Oct. 8, Street Roots vendors and supporters can all dig into the same seasonal frittata with potatoes and peppers, and that wonderful pumpkin bread (“I always knew who was going to want three slices,” Katherine reminisced, laughing).
Of course you are welcome to attend the Street Roots breakfast without purchasing the breakfast. (And we’ll send you the recipe, so you also can make it at home!)
Just RSVP – and please encourage your friends to do so, also. Even though we can’t gather in large crowds in person, we can virtually, so the more the merrier.
We have a great morning planned. Digging into our media roots, this breakfast event will be broadcast-style, co-anchored by KGW news reporter Maggie Vespa and DeVon Pouncey, who you may know as the host of the Street Roots podcast — and as the director of the vendor program
The centerpiece of our broadcast will be a short film, “Becoming Raven,” following Raven Drake’s extraordinary transformation into leadership during COVID-19. We’re thrilled to lift up another nonprofit partner, Outside the Frame, which is producing this film. Outside the Frame supports homeless youth in filmmaking. Executive Editor Joanne Zuhl will host a brief interview session with Street Roots staff and vendors, and we’ll be honoring our COVID-19 Vendor Action Team for its heroic and essential public health work during the pandemic
So let’s come together at 8 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 8. Join us for just under an hour to lift up Street Roots, breaking bread together.
Director's Desk is written by Kaia Sand, the executive director of Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand.
Street Roots is an award-winning, weekly publication focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
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