Working Together
Eastside Community Lunch began with a simple idea: offer a good meal, served with care, to people experiencing hunger in Southeast Portland.
We began in 1981 with Pat Schwiebert and the once-a-week “Hard Times Supper.” Over the years we changed with the times. We’ve said goodbye to old friends and welcomed new faces.
What started as a pot of soup has grown into a reliable lunch where guests are welcomed at the table, offered food to take with them, and invited into a space shaped by warmth, dignity, and respect.
Our all-volunteer community is fed by the connections we make and the friendships we build.
Why Sit-Down Lunch Matters
A sit-down meal changes the feeling of the day. It gives people a place to pause. To eat without rushing. To be greeted by name. To share a conversation, or simply rest for a while in a familiar room.
At Eastside Community Lunch, the meal is practical and immediate, but it also carries something deeper: the reminder that every person deserves welcome, care, and belonging.
Our work is rooted in Love in Action.
To us, that means care made visible through ordinary things: a bowl of soup, a full plate, a packed sack lunch, a remembered face, a warm greeting, a place at the table.
It means refusing the idea of “us and them,” and choosing instead to practice community across difference.