Street Roots • May 18-24, 2018
Opinion
Together we’re strong - and getting stronger
s she flipped pancakes on the portable
griddle she had transported on her bike,
Katherine Deumling chatted with Street
Roots vendors, calling them by name and
remembering details of their lives.
A Street Roots supporter, Deumling is also
the founder of Cook
With What You Have,
advocating that people
create nourishing food
in whatever conditions
they face, rather than
By Kaia Sand
stall for perfect
conditions. This spring,
every other Tuesday,
she has been bringing
that ethos to Street Roots because of the
relationships she has formed with vendors all
around the city.
“Once you know someone you care about
them,” Katherine said to me. And because she
cares about Street Roots vendors, she wants to
cook for them.
She began to talk with me about all the
encounters she had just yesterday. One Street
Roots vendor pulled up on a bike - thanks to a
Street Roots partnership with Biketown - to
say hello to her and her son. Another vendor
was singing, as is his custom, as he sold Street
Roots outside a bakery.
These were highlights of her day.
I hear from so many of you how much it
matters to encounter Street Roots vendors.
Just as Katherine did, you tell me stories. It is
these relationships that make Street Roots so
profound.
While each of you gives a vendor a hand-up
when you buy a Street Roots, the impact is not
just one way.
, By talking with a Street Roots vendor, you
come to know a person defined by more than
homelessness and poverty. Street Roots
vendors have so many interests - musical
theater, karaoke, creative writing, Marvel
comics and sports teams, to name only a few.
We have vendors who are quick with the puns
and corny jokes (my recent favorite came from
a vendor named Doug who - after I called him
a “donut connoisseur” - quipped that his dad
used to playfully switch connoisseur to
“common sewer.”) We have vendors who chat
about the latest national news, and vendors
who are striving locally through political
organizing to make conditions better for other
A
DIRECTOR'
DESK
K aia Sand is the
executive director o f
Street Roots. You can
reach her at
ka ia @streetroots. org.
Follow her on
Twitter @mkaiasand
folks struggling with homelessness and
poverty
There is no doubt that Street Roots vendors
live varied and interesting lives. So much of
who we are is played out all over the city
through the relationships between vendors and
supporters.
But it is also through getting to know people
who are struggling with homelessness and
poverty that those of us who are housed learn
about struggles that are different than our
own. We come to understand how chronic
sleep deprivation makes everything else much
more difficult; how people bang up against
systemic barriers difficult to overcome; how
layers of traumas weigh heavy.
We understand how it is difficult to maintain
a job when there is no place to store one’s
belongings or shower. How catastrophic events
often land people on the streets: The death of
a family member. An accident. A health crisis.
Street Roots is about connection - about
coming to care about each other through what
we have in common, and through our
differences - and finding strength in that
connection.
With your support, we operate our vendor
office every single day of the week, year round
- because homelessness doesn’t take the day
off - supporting our Street Roots vendors and
orienting new ones.
That connection extends even beyond your
relationship with your vendor. With your
support, our journalists can do social justice
reporting in the best of traditions, launching
the newspaper week after week. With your
support, we print the Rose City Resource,
making sure that people who are homeless and
poor have access to them all over the metro
region. And with your support, we continue
our advocacy for systemic change, striving for
a more equitable future.
For the month of May, we are running our
spring appeal, and it has already been so
successful, thanks to readers like you. We
reached our initial goal of $10,000, all matched
by a generous donor. Thank you!
Let’s keep it going!
Please find the envelope stapled into this
edition of the paper and help this spring
appeal be wildly successful. Together, we are
strong and getting stronger. Thank you for
being a part of Street Roots.
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»¡to in
We ask that all submissions include the
author’s name and contact information,
Executive Editor Joanne Zuhl
joanne@streetroots.org
Vendor Program Director Cole Merkel
cole@streetroots.org
Development Director Andrew Hogan
andrew@streetroots.org
Senior Staff Reporter Emily Green
Operations Director Sarah Beecroff
Program Assistant Caelin Miltko, Jesuit
Volunteer
Vendor Assistant Scott Jackson, Alex
Gillow-Wiles
Board of Directors
Chair Rachel Langford
Vice-Chair Dan Jones
Treasurer Heather Stadick
Secretary Alison Hallett
Directors Michael Anderson, Sandra Hahn,
John Brown, Nets Johnson
Volunteers
Street Roots
volunteer Katherine
D eum ling fixes
pancakes fo r
vendors in the
Street Roots vendor
office, May 15.
D eum ling comes
every other Tuesday,
hauling food and
equipment on her
bike, to fix a healthy
meal fo r the crew.
John Barker, Stacey Heath, Anjali Rathore, Dennis
Hogan, Lucas Hawthorne, Thomas Buell Jr., Jason
Cohen, Doug Spangle, Susannah Kamala, Jon
Raymond, Diana Richardson, Paul and Madeline
Gefroh, Mary Anne Joyce, Brooke Anderson, Gillian
Ftoren, Mark Oldani, Bianca Butler, Camber Hansen-
Karr, Miranda Woods, Henry Brannan, Helen Hill,
Mary Emerson, Brooke Anderson, Kathleen McFall,
Robb Hengerer, Maile Yeats-Rowe, Erin Parsons, Faye
Powell, Jon Raymond, Danny Moran and Megan
Pickerel-Winer. If you're interested in volunteering
with Street Roots, please submit a volunteer
application at streetroots.org/volunteer. Or you can
call for more information at 503-228-5657.