PORTLAND, Oregon — We've all been looking for small solutions to Portland's homeless crisis, but now there's a job-skills training center in the Old Town area that's found success.
The nonprofit is called Stone Soup. They find good people at risk of becoming homeless who want to learn the food service industry. Participants get plenty of kitchen skills through the 12-week program, but also conflict resolution, how to deal with having a boss and personal budgeting.
Now Stone Soup has just launched a way for the public to support all of this, and it's delicious.
"Today we're doing the zuppa di ceci, which is just a real old timey, simple soup — it's vegan," said chef Scott Dolich, head of retail for Stone Soup, as he ladled up a bowl.
Handing out soup samples at Italian marketplace Cooperativa in Portland's Pearl District, folks grabbing lunch are getting just a taste of what Stone Soup does so well — and that's just the cooking.
"It's a workforce development program for people experiencing barriers to employment," Dolich explained. "So whatever that looks like in terms of ... it could be people in the houseless community, it could be people who have been marginalized. We act as kind of a catalyst to be able to help people get into the right type of employment."
At their Old Town home base, that looks like food prep and knife skills classes. But the most important part of participants' 12 weeks in this program on their way to getting a full time job are the conflict resolution techniques they learn, how to budget when you get a paycheck, and how to be coachable by a manager.
"Almost everybody in the world has gone through some trauma at one time or another," said Craig Gerard, founder of Stone Soup. "The food service industry happens to be a place where you can land and succeed, even if you might have had a colorful background or some life experience. But along with that life experience comes trauma. And if we can work through that and not re-traumatize people while they're in their jobs, then they'll stick around longer."
Enter Stone Soup's new monthly subscription program. For $48 a month, customers can choose a different quart of soup per week; prepped, cooked and packaged by the program. That's enough to feed a family of four for a meal. People can pick it up at one of six locations across the city, one of them being Cooperativa, where you can grab a square of pizza or a salad and pasta to complete the meal.
"It's something good for families if they want something quick. Or it could be a couple who want to keep a quart of soup in their refrigerator for a weekend or something like that," Dolich said.
They have 30 soup subscribers now, with the goal of 80. Here are the locations where people can pick up soup subscription choices each week:
- Stone Soup: 306 NW Broadway
- Cooperativa: 1250 NW 9th Ave
- Classic Foods: 817 NE Madrona St
- Private Residence: 8012 SW 64th Ave
- Piccone's Corner: 3434 NE Sandy Blvd
- Lardo SE: 1212 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Stone Soup's pre-pandemic model of a public restaurant is closed. The owners say that larger-scale office or event catering and this subscription program proved a better fit to budget, plan and cook for.
They've had 30 graduates of their program in three years, and more who didn't make it all the way through. As these programs get support and orders, more of those experienced graduates can be hired back full time.
The soup is delicious, and it should be. Dolich, who teaches all the cooking technique and comes up with the recipes, is the real deal. He's been nominated for three James Beard awards and was the owner and chef of Park Kitchen and The Bent Brick.
If you want to subscribe and support Stone Soup, the link to sign up is here.