Nonprofit highlight: How Sisters of the Road fights back against systemic food scarcity

by Kayla Meeko 

 “Sisters of the Road does not exist to be a cafe; we exist to build relationships.”

-On the Ground (documentary)

This moto sums up the values that Sandy Gooch and Genevieve Nelson founded their non-profit cafe upon. Since its founding in 1979, Portland's Sisters of the Road has prided itself with being the first non-profit dining facility in the nation to accept food stamps as payment for entrees. In addition to food stamps as payment, Sisters of the Road provides a barter exchange program that offers free fresh meals and farmer’s market produces in exchange for labor at the cafe. They also host a community garden where the food for their kitchen is harvested. Recognizing their mission as “food justice”, their bio states a belief that “everyone has a piece of the truth and that we are all more than the sum of our current situation or past experiences.” The cafe offers a safe and violence-free setting where everyone is welcome to come abide and enjoy a meal. The nonprofit is currently hosting their annual Full Plate Project, which invites donors to help fight food scarcity by contributing to community outreach.

Mission Statement: 

“Sisters of the Road exists to build authentic relationships and alleviate the hunger of isolation in an atmosphere of nonviolence and gentle personalism that nurtures the whole individual, while seeking systemic solutions that reach the roots of homelessness and poverty to end them forever.”

In 2001, Sisters of the Road launched the Community Organizing Project. They conducted 600 interviews with people who were experiencing homelessness and developed a community-advocacy group. These interviews were completed in 2004 and the information collected was used for qualitative research on homelessness by the University of Washington at Tacoma School of Urban Studies. In 2007 a book entitled Voices From the Street, Truths About Homelessness from Sisters of the Road was published about the research project. In 2013, the business transitioned to a staff collective before launching the Healthy Plate Project and beginning to focus on Food Justice programming. The community garden was planted in 2015. Along with Food Justice outreach, Sisters does much to uncover the realities and root causes of houselessness in Portland.