The Portland Food Project was started in 2012 by Richard Nudelman, a Southeast Portland resident, who was concerned about hunger in the Portland area. He realized that many of his neighbors wanted to help fight hunger in their community, but for one reason or another, never get around to it. So to make it easy, he adopted a simple, door-to-door food collection system to enable people to pitch in.
The new organization had three goals:
- To provide a regular supply of food to hungry neighbors
- To create new neighborhood connections and strengthen the community
- To serve as a model for other communities
Richard started by inviting neighbors and friends to participate. Whenever someone said “Yes,” he suggested that they buy just one extra non-perishable food item each week, and store it at home. He promised to stop by the donors’ homes every two months, pick the food up, and take it directly to PFP’s food pantry partners.
Portland Food Project started with 14 initial donors. In 2012, they contributed 237 lbs. of food to two Southeast Portland food pantries: The Kelly School SUN Pantry and SE Community Food Pantry.
Today, there are 150 Neighborhood Coordinators picking up food from about 1,800 households. Every other month, we collect about 19,000 lbs of food. By the end of 2023, PFP had collected more than 1,111,222 lbs.—the equivalent of more than 926,019 meals—one bag at a time!
It’s an amazing success story…but there’s still plenty of need in our area, and plenty of room for the PFP to grow. So join us! Don’t wait for a neighbor to knock on your door. Get in touch and let us know you want to share food. We’ll bring you a green bag, and get you started right away!
The Portland Food Project was started in 2012 by Richard Nudelman, a Southeast Portland resident, who was concerned about hunger in the Portland area. He realized that many of his neighbors wanted to help fight hunger in their community, but for one reason or another, never get around to it. So to make it easy, he adopted a simple, door-to-door food collection system to enable people to pitch in.
The new organization had three goals:
- To provide a regular supply of food to hungry neighbors
- To create new neighborhood connections and strengthen the community
- To serve as a model for other communities
Richard started by inviting neighbors and friends to participate. Whenever someone said “Yes,” he suggested that they buy just one extra nonperishable food item each week, and store it at home. He promised to stop by the donors’ homes every two months, pick the food up, and take it directly to PFP’s food pantry partners.
Portland Food Project started with 14 initial donors. In 2012, they contributed 237 lbs. of food to two Southeast Portland food pantries: The Kelly School SUN Pantry and SE Community Food Pantry.
Today, there are 120 Neighborhood Coordinators picking up food from about 1,600 households. Every other month, we collect about 19,000 lbs. of food. By the end of 2018, PFP had collected more than 423,000 lbs.—the equivalent of more than 350,000 meals—one bag at a time!
It’s an amazing success story…but there’s still plenty of need in our area, and plenty of room for the PFP to grow. So join us! Don’t wait for a neighbor to knock on your door. Get in touch and let us know you want to share food. We’ll bring you a green bag, and get you started right away!