Giving Compass' Take:

• A high school outside of Portland, Oregon is cooking food for the homeless population and aspires to create a solutions incubator that will address homelessness in Oregon on a more long-term sustainable level. 

• Why is it important for high school students to get into this social impact work early on?  How can this model be geared towards also encouraging community mobilization?

• Read about pay for success models that some organizations are using to end homelessness. 

In 2016, high school rising junior Hank Sanders had an inkling of an idea. He wanted to take his school’s popular culinary arts class and give the food to people experiencing homelessness. As it stood, students ate the food they cooked. Outside Portland, Oregon’s Lincoln High School, where Sanders attends, he saw people who were sleeping on the streets. He approached his friends with his idea and they ran with it.

There was a 9.9 percent increase in the homeless population between 2015 and 2017, according to the 2017 Point-in-Time report from Portland State University and its partners.

Twice a week, students from Lincoln cook and serve meals to people ages 25 and under who are experiencing homelessness. Since 2016, they’ve served almost 27,000 meals and nearly 100 high school students have volunteered with the program. CardsCook now has established itself as a nonprofit organization. They’ve expanded to include students at Jesuit and Lake Oswego high schools to serve meals in their local communities, too.

“What we’re doing with CardsCook we know is a Band-Aid solution,” Sanders says. “Serving meals is just a Band-Aid, but in order to make an actual impact that resonates with the community, we’re creating a solutions incubator where we are making three to four inexpensive but meaningful solutions.”

In addition to making even more meals available, CardsCook plans to increase homeless people’s access to veterinary care for their pets. They’re also working with local newspapers to publish personal stories that homeless people write and for which they’ll be paid, Sanders says.

The local nonprofit Harbor of Hope, which was created to raise funds and create solutions for Portland’s homeless population, is helping to fundCardsCook’s new effort.

Read the full article about feeding the homeless by Deonna Anderson at YES! Magazine