PPRC Interactors make national broadcast news
Though the Pearl Rotary's Interact Club at Lincoln High School wasn't mentioned by name, students well known to Rotarians were in the national limelight May 7.
That's when NBC's Nightly News (with Lester Holt) kicked off a week-long series of broadcasts from cities across the nation. Chosen for one of three Portland-based vignettes was the Cards Cook project, a Lincoln students' weekly volunteer effort to feed a meal to homeless men and women, mostly young adults and some with children.
One founder of the meals project was Hank Sanders, co-president of Interact, and a junior at Lincoln. During the pre-meal food preparation, Holt conversed with Hank, left, and co-president Ben Brandenburger, also a junior (pictured above on right). Other Interactors can be seen during the three-minute broadcast (which can be found on the PPRC Facebook site).
"Nine million people saw the NBC spot," Hank later commented. "It got posted on multiple Instagrams with hundreds of thousands of followers. David Byrne (lead singer for the Talking Heads) saw it and asked us to write an article about our work [see link below]. Lester was a super nice guy and I still talk to his team frequently."
In his own words, Hank wrote:
"Dedicated to serving the young adult homeless population, ages 0-25, Cards Cook partners with Oregon Food Bank (OFB) and a nearby church called First Christian to serve meals after school. OFB provides our ingredients, while Clay Street Table provides insurance and supervision for the food preparation. At least once a week, 8-12 students walk across the street and prepare a meal for 300-500 people. Over the past two years, we are proud to say we have served almost 27,000 meals, and almost 100 high school students have volunteered over 2,000 hours.
The program may soon be replicated, Hank predicted. "The idea behind our program is a simple one—which means it can be copied—and Cards Cook encourages students from other schools to open new chapters. By the beginning of next year, we plan on starting chapters at Jesuit High School, International School of Beaverton and Lake Oswego High School."
For LHS students and the Interact Club, it has brought new meaning to life and volunteering.
"When I sat down and talked to these people, I realized the reasons I used to think were behind their homelessness were not telling the whole story. While drugs and alcohol can play a role, their situation is more often a result of the cyclical poverty that harms many of the people we serve. Most of the people under 25 grew up in an environment of abuse and homelessness. They inherited the issues they deal with today. Eat one meal at the same table and your perspective is changed."
Principal Peyton Chapman (and honorary Pearl Rotarian) added her observations, congratulations and pride in this email to the newsletter editor:
"It is deeply gratifying to see Lincoln students connecting the ideas, skills and values they are learning in classes at Lincoln to problem-solving action steps in the local community. I can trace Cards Cook back to a student-facilitated Math Connection’s class two years ago which asked students to identify problems in the community and then use mathematical skills to help find ways to solve the problem.
"Last year Hank Sanders [now Interact co-president] helped create an entrepreneurial leadership class that asked students to create non-profits or small businesses to do the same kind of inquiry and action using philanthropic-oriented business skills. Cards Cook is an excellent example of the many ways students are using their growing inquiry, leadership, academic and innovation skills to change and improve the world around them. Hank and others have surely inspired the next wave of classes and clubs that will continue to provide student-led avenues for the application of learning. Go, Cards!"
The PPRC Facebook site has a link to the NBC piece, one that will make you proud of these students...and with a quiet tip of the hat to PPRC which began the club ten years ago (that anniversary comes next January)