PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Local non-profit Blanchet House is celebrating 70 years of serving people in need in the Portland community on Friday.
The organization opened its doors in Old Town 70 years ago and was started by a group of college students.
“Students at the University of Portland. They were inspired and mentored to serve meals to people who were hungry and at that time it was a lot of folks who worked in the timber and fishing industries and when there wasn’t work, they needed food,” Blanchet House Executive Director Scott Kerman said.
Kerman told KOIN 6 the need of course, has grown exponentially. Especially, in the last few years during the pandemic.
Blanchet House not only serves three meals, six days a week, but they also have two long-term transitional housing programs, one in Old Town, and one in Carlton where there’s a working farm for recovering addicts.
Kerman says many of the people they help just fell on hard times and had nowhere to turn.
“I often say, I would have to burn through a lot of family and friends before I found myself on the street. Well, a lot of people grow up in communities characterized by poverty, systemic discrimination and racism and they don’t necessarily have the same safety net,” Kerman explained.
To mark the 70th birthday of Blanchet, they’re serving an updated version of what they served all those decades ago for the first meal — beans, bread and coffee, and of course a few other items.