Street Roots is happy to announce we were honored at Northwest Pilot Projects’ (NWPP) annual event this year with a Community Service Award for outstanding achievement and service to Portland’s elderly, homeless and poor.
Since 1969, NWPP has been offering housing and service opportunities for a life of dignity and hope to Portland’s elderly, disabled, and homeless. Each year, NWPP has successfully housed many Street Roots vendors, and we are indebted to their services.
On another front, I’m humbled to receive the Hilltop award this month from Multnomah County for my lifelong community work with the people experiencing homelessness in the region and for my work with Street Roots.
I’ve dedicated my life to the street newspaper movement, for better or worse, and couldn’t be more proud of all of the vendors, volunteers, staff and board members at Street Roots for helping the newspaper continue to grow and be recognized in the community. At the end of the day, everything we do is built around the idea of not only giving people outside of the system an income, but also hope.
The great Woody Guthrie once said something to the effect of not letting anyone or anything knock around your hope machine. I would like to believe that all of the sweat and tears that the entire team at Street Roots puts in to presenting this newspaper and the Rose City Resource is ultimately about hope.
Day in and day out we work with many individuals that have been to hell and back, and may be experiencing a high level of trauma due to the brutal realities of homelessness. With a little bit of hope and self-worth through the sales of the newspaper and the relationships we all build with vendors, we begin to believe we can do anything, be it personally or collectively.
Together, we refuse to accept that poverty is a hand we have been dealt, and nothing can be done about it. Instead, we work to create individual and social change in a way that will make the world we live in a better place. With each sale of the newspaper, readers become part of that collective movement towards something positive — both in the lives of the vendors and in the city we live. Together, we fight back with a positive message of love.