Who doesn’t like waking up to the smell of coffee brewing and bacon on the stove? The 150 or so shelter clients we serve hot meals to sure do!
During the financial crisis in 2012, the shelter breakfast program at DESC (Downtown Emergency Service Center, http://desc.org/) was hit hard due to budget cutbacks forcing the staff to replace healthy oatmeal, milk and fresh fruit with prepackaged cup-o-noodles, granola bars, and day old bagels.
We started by collecting donations from our friends and coworkers for DESC’s breakfast program. Matching funds from Microsoft Corporation doubled our purchase power and allowed the us to create a healthy home cooked breakfast of
bacon, eggs, hash browns, and seasonal fruit for shelter clients.
How do you make breakfast for 200 people? According to Phil Camp there’s nothing to it. Just take 5 dozen eggs, 3 lbs. each of mushrooms and peppers and scramble them up into fluffy yellow curds. Meanwhile fry 18 lbs. of turkey bacon until crisp and 15 lbs. of hash browns until golden brown. Slide it all onto a plate and watch the
smiles appear.
The frequency of breakfast varies depending on the donations we get, but we aim to serve at least twice a month, and preferably more.
A typical meal can be:
1) Eggs (Quiche)
2) Bread
3) Bananas
4) Milk or juice
5) Turkey Bacon, Beef sausage (some form of protein).
Our breakfast tray.
How many eggs you can break in a minute!!
We try to celebrate occasions like Christmas and Thanksgiving with our clients by providing a special menu.
Here is our last Thanksgiving meal:
1) Rotisserie Chicken
2) Bread
3) Creamy Mashed potatoes
4) Lemonade
5) Cranberry sauce
Our Thanksgiving shopping cart
On average we serve approximately 150 clients per breakfast. The per client cost is about $1.25 for regular breakfasts. On special occasions like Christmas, Thanksgiving etc. it goes up to about $2.00 per client.
You can sponsor a complete breakfast for 150 people by donating $200, or however much you want, to help finance a future breakfast. You can donate via PayPal (add “DESC weekend breakfast program” in “purpose”).
Want to come out and help us? We are always looking for volunteers to help us serve breakfast. You can contact us at Send us an email!