In early June, a new cafe in the Montavilla neighborhood will start serving breakfast pastries and coffee in the mornings and grab-and-go soups, sandwiches, and salads in the afternoon. Its offerings all sound pretty standard, but this isn’t the average Portland cafe.
Behind the counter, Stone Soup PDX is helping the next wave of food industry workers find their footing.
The cafe, which has been in the works for the last two years, is a public-facing initiative of Stone Soup PDX, a nonprofit culinary workforce development program that supports people seeking to enter the food industry. Stone Soup trainees also make free community meals, a weekly service that began at the beginning of the pandemic and has continued.
The nonprofit’s philosophy is that everyone should have food and be nourished by it. Portland’s restaurant industry has a shortage of skilled workers, but there’s also a large barrier to entry — particularly due to the lack of culinary institutions for adults, says executive director Ellen Damaschino. Stone Soup’s programs are a direct solution to fulfilling that need in the city.
“I learned so much here,” says recent program graduate Lily Todd. “Even as far as holding a knife—I’d never known there was a proper way to hold it.” She learned of the program while homeless for a year; Once she found stable housing, she completed the program. She is now looking for a career in the organic and vegan dining scene.
Stone Soup founders Craig and Ronit Gerard have backgrounds in food service. Both are Jewish, and grew up living by “tikkun olam,” a Judaic concept that roughly translates to “helping to repair the world.” The couple lived in eight cities during Ronit’s 15-year stint as an international aid worker. When they settled down in Portland, they wanted to combine their love of food and service to contribute to the city.
The nonprofit’s workforce program only accepts adult participants and divides its education into three tiers, depending on their prior experience with food service. The curriculum includes hands-on experience in the kitchen and also focuses on career-building skills such as writing resumes, networking, and interviewing. Tier one teaches foundational skills like food safety, knife handling, and cooking techniques. Participants build on that foundation in tier two as they prepare meals for the cafe and catering clients. In tier three, participants fine-tune all the skills they’ve learned by preparing community meals at Stone Soup’s Powell Boulevard production facility.
“When I was transitioning into stability in my life, I wasn’t able to afford a culinary course, but wanted to take responsibility for providing for myself,” says tier one participant Jason Whitworth. Finishing tier one has helped Whitworth grow his confidence and self-esteem in the kitchen environment. Despite working in the food service industry his whole life, he has previously only held busser, dishwasher, and server roles.
In addition to the curriculum, Stone Soup also supplies participants with a pair of work pants, an apron, and a stipend of $2,500, plus gas money or a Hop pass. Damaschino says the stipend and gas money/Hop pass helps participants offset the cost of living and helps them stay in class.
Whitworth has also been homeless and previously battled addiction, which led him to seek support from programs like the Blanchet House of Hospitality, a nonprofit social services organization in Old Town. His goal is to find a job at an organization where he can support food insecurity programming, in the spirit of reciprocity toward the programs that supported him.
Damaschino’s long-term vision is for Stone Soup PDX to be the premier culinary workforce development program in Portland, continuing its mission of supporting folks looking to enter the industry while building comprehensive community programming. This would include teaching how to budget for meals, navigating grocery stores, and other ways to help those who lack access to food resources.
Since Stone Soup began its community meal program in 2020. It has provided over 50,000 meals to organizations like the Community for Positive Aging, Albertina Kerr, and Nexus Family Healing, plus more mental health facilities, senior communities, schools, and shelters that support Portlanders facing food, income, or housing insecurity.
Since its inception in 2019, the nonprofit has grown significantly. Stone Soup’s permanent staff is composed of 15 employees, but approximately 400 volunteers have contributed their time and skills, from drivers delivering meals to guest chefs offering their expertise. Over 80 participants graduated from the training program in 2024, and Damaschino projects having over 100 graduates in 2025. The executive director herself started at Stone Soup as a volunteer, primarily delivering meals in 2020.
“It feels good to be one piece of a bigger chain,” says April Parker, a volunteer and Montavilla resident. She learned about the nonprofit through a neighborhood newsletter announcing the Stone Soup PDX Cafe opening.
Granet says they plan on opening more opportunities for volunteers, specifically bringing in more industry folks to cook and show their skills throughout the training program. Additionally, the cafe hopes to add a barista training program come fall, plus more front-of-house service opportunities.
The nonprofit is funded through a few avenues, from individual donations and partner organizations to contracts and grants with the city and county. For the last couple of fiscal years, the Multnomah County’s Joint Office of Homeless Services contract has provided between $50,000 to $60,000.
In February 2025, homeless service director Dan Field announced the budget had a $104 million shortfall; or about a quarter of the annual budget. As a result, services provided by the department would see a 25% reduction, and the proposed 2026 fiscal year budget completely eliminated the Employment Services funding line.
Without the yearly contract, Stone Soup’s support services manager may no longer be funded. This individual is a dedicated resource officer, helping participants with purchasing basic needs to stay in the program, navigating community resource programs, and more. With a restricted budget, the program would also have to limit the number of its participants.
Stone Soup is part of a coalition with other social services organizations, including Central City Concern, Cultivate Initiatives, Ground Score Association, PDX Saints Love, Hygiene 4 All and Outside the Frame, that is advocating for funding to be reinstated in the proposed budget. In a joint letter to the county commissioners and Metro council members outlining, the coalition writes that eliminating the funding would be a severe setback to program operators and recipients. “Once this infrastructure is gone, it will be incredibly difficult and far more costly to rebuild,” the letter reads.
“We’re just helping folks who need 12 weeks of training and stipend to get back on their feet to get to wealth growth,” says director of development Christina Putterman. “We’re looking to help people get to a place that finds a job that has a living wage, then benefits and a 401k, not just scraping by…. So it’s not just, ‘Let’s get you a minimum wage job,’ but ‘Here’s the soft and hard skills so you and your family don’t have to face that insecurity again.’”
Stone Soup PDX Cafe, 7400 NE Glisan; opens June 2, Tuesday–Friday 7 am–2 pm
