Hand Up Project

Food is a natural way of building community and providing emergency food services allows us to form bonds that turn into friendship and trust, thus more productive interactions with participants.
Offering a shopping style pantry preserves dignity by offering choice of food staples. This model also caters to the individuals personal and culturally specific dietary needs, while avoiding food waste from cookie cutter style food boxes. Everyone is welcome; however, we cater to the BIPOC and LGBTQ2SIA+ communities. Both experiencing higher rates of food insecurity and systemic repression.

Going beyond food. Hand Up Project has joined Connect Oregon, a coordinated care network of health and social service providers serving Oregon and SW Washington. Partners in the network are connected through "Unite Us" shared technology platform, which is HIPPA compliant and enables us to send and receive electronic referrals, address peoples social needs, and improve health across communities. We presently have 3 Peer Support Specialist volunteering on pantry days to assist.
We continue to develop and add resources to our resource page on our website. https://www.handupproject.org/resources. Empowering clients to link to a number of helpful services that may assist them.

We continue to break distribution records at Hand Up Project. In just the past year we had a 123.73% increase in shoppers

Hand Up Projects-The Peoples Pantry Emergency Food Project offers a shopping style pantry, which preserves dignity by offering a choice of food staples. This model also caters to the individuals personal and culturally specific dietary needs as donations allow; all while avoiding food waste from cookie cutter style food boxes.

The launch of our Connect Oregon Resource Referral Hub has had an exciting impact. Our peer support staff work to help refer back into the Connect Oregon system assisting clients to connect to needed services. We have also able to add a self-referral form on our website for our clients who are seeking help. https://www.handupproject.org/referral-hub

We pride ourselves on creating a safe no barrier space that welcomes everyone no matter who you love. We see it vital to bridge the systemic gap created in food access to our communities.

Hand Up Project is the only LGBTQ2SIA+ founded and led food assistance program open to the public in Portland. We have lifetimes of experience navigating the struggles suffered by the Queer community. Since 2016 we have been working closely with those suffering food insecurities created by systemic barriers.

Coming together over food builds community. Providing a shopping style food pantry allows us to form a bond that turns into friendship and builds trust, thus more productive interactions with participants. Working out of Q Center gives us immediate recognition of being a safe space for the community to access services.

As a member of Connect Oregon our Peer Support Specialists help connect clients with partners in the network to empower clients to address social needs.

We also network with other like-minded service providers that see our service days as a meaningful connection point with the community. Organizations like The EQUI Institute and their team of Community Health Workers, who also work at Q Center and Transitions Project who take our referrals to screen houseless clients for a permanent housing program.

We also have a history of serving during an emergency. During the pandemic we adapted our procedures to ensure everyone was safe, while not missing one single service day. We also hosted vaccination clinics and distributed mask, hand sanitizer and Covid education to the community.

We believe in a It takes a Village attitude. The In-kind support of our volunteer staff is paramount. Our volunteers are the driving force of our program and made-up of a diverse group of including past & present recipients of pantry services.

Oregon Food Bank supplies the majority of food staples. Connect Oregon connecting to resources. Q Center gives us instant recognition as a safe space for our community. EQUI Institute has an office on site with Community Healthcare Workers on staff and provide live Spanish translation. TriMet provides pantry participants a HOP pass to help get their groceries home. The Portland Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence support our hygiene kit program. Bombas Socks donates socks for the homeless community. We are about to reach 24,000 pairs distributed. Save Lives Oregon as given us a grant to supply harm reduction supplies to the community. We receive free software subscriptions from both Microsoft Office 365 and Google suites. Our most recent grants awards came from OnPoint, New Seasons, Metro and The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence of Portland. We enjoy weekly donations of bread from Dave's Killer Bread and periodic food drives from organizations like Pride Northwest, Kumoricon, Metro Paint and Utopia PDX.
We have also recently partnered with Transitions Project referring clients to be screened for permanent housing and Cheer Portland has pledged to help with fundraising in the coming year.