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We recently had the opportunity to interview Craig Gerard, Executive Director of Stone Soup PDX which is a quaint restaurant that sits right between Oldtown and the Pearl districts on Burnside street.
Stone Soup in downtown Portland, Oregon is helping the disadvantaged houseless community by providing food for local shelters and also training those who are at risk of becoming houseless. Those who are at risk of becoming homeless are defined as those who have recently moved or been relocated, partnering with social service providers like Join and Catholic Charities. Referring partners help vex the potential program participants and are excited about careers in the food and service industry. Stone Soup is more interested in where people want to go, as opposed to where they’ve been. Increasing nutritional intake is of the utmost importance to help the houseless community be able to become self-sufficient. According to an academic article written by Sprake, Russell and Barker, “People experiencing houselessness are at risk of being malnourished due to a low income and lack of ways to store and cook nutritionally beneficial foods, leading to a reliance on cheap, ready-prepared foods. They may also lack knowledge of how to achieve a healthy diet in their situation. Provided food sources (e.g. soup kitchens) make an important contribution to energy intake and nutritional health, but may not be optimised to improve users’ diets.”
Stone Soup’s program gives the tools to those who have the ambition to learn and excel. You can help, do something profound and make a difference. Currently, Stone Soup is responsible for training 16 graduate students and when considering the length of the program, this sits right at national average for graduates for the program that Stone Soup is under. During the pandemic, Stone Soup PDX is dedicated to donating meals (currently they are making and donating 2000 meals a month through contracts in Multnomah county) having completely changed the operations of the restaurant into a cooking / distributing center. Stone Soup has also been the directing hub that is networking with other restaurants to fulfill nearly 20000 meals a month to shelters contracted by Portland. It’s simple to think that there are people who just simply won’t make the choice to get on their own two feet, and this idea unfortunately can cauterize our hearts believing that there are those who truly have circumstances outside of their control and need assistance. It’s also important to mention that each individual has their own barriers to success and self-sufficiency. We can unfortunately consider individuals as being “smart” or “not smart” when instead Howard Gardner in his book “Changing Minds” speaks against this idea which is labels as the “Single Intelligence” where is states that some people believe that “intelligence is a single entity,” “people are born with a certain amount of intelligence,” “our amount of intelligence is defined by our genes,” and that “psychologists can tell you how smart you are through an IQ test.” Instead, Gardner writes that there are multiple intelligences in which a single individual can have more or less of and need training for. Some of these intelligences include:
What can you do? Order online: https://www.stonesouppdx.com/online-ordering Volunteer your time or donate: https://www.stonesouppdx.com/helpout
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