Punks With Lunch makes approximately 150 lunches a week for people in West Oakland experiencing homelessness and distribute them with needle kits, hygiene packs and miscellaneous items such as dog food and tarps depending on funding and donations. Each lunch has a sandwich, fruit, water bottle, snack, and napkin. These lunches cost about $1 to make and we have been able to successfully grow in scope since our foundation. Originally starting in a small home kitchen, we now host meal prep in a warehouse in West Oakland and have two routes for distribution as well as a stationary needle exchange in more populated areas. We have grown personal relationships with the people we see on a weekly basis, and it’s a passion that has helped us forge both a stronger sense of community and a bond between our own volunteers.
 
With winter approaching, we are hoping to expand our lunch offerings to include hot meals for our friends experiencing homelessness. With a limited budget and the difficulty of not being an established 501 c3, we’re seeking a solution to help our program continue to grow and offer even more services and resources with time. We’ve already establish a rapport with the people in our community but we’d like to see it grow. Punks With Lunch is already way more than we expected it to be in a tiny kitchen with five people one year ago, and we have high hopes for building something bigger than what our dreams have now grown to be.