I was probably the last person my coworkers would have expected to start a business during 2020. Six years ago, I was sleeping “couch-to-couch” to avoid homelessness, after struggling for most of my young life with depression and eating disorders caused by looming anxiety and PTSD. Working at restaurants helped me afford stable housing, but often I was forced to decide between paying bills and buying food or household supplies. Although I enjoyed the work itself, my next five years in restaurants worsened my anxiety and depression as I worked long hours and was repeatedly mistreated, constantly struggling to hide the symptoms of my stress. I worked hard, and my growing passion for restaurant work earned me promotions despite my ongoing anxiety issues, which affected my work when I wasn’t able to cope. Eventually, I had a job in bar management that I liked and I no longer worried about keeping housing, having enough to eat, being mistreated at work or suddenly losing my job. I started to practice skills to cope with my symptoms, and over time my anxiety and depression have become occasional feelings that I am confident in managing. I was furloughed in February as COVID spread and restaurants struggled to adapt, and without a routine or sense of purpose, I felt my depression and anxiety beginning to take over again. I read the news that more people would experience food insecurity this year than predicted, as schools and childcare facilities closed, jobs laid off workers and cut hours, panicked buyers prepared for lockdown and foods eligible for purchase with government benefits became scarce. Food insecurity had been a major contributor toward my mental illness, and I know how hard it is to address other issues when there isn’t enough nutritious food to eat. After working so hard to find and defend my own stability and happiness, I was sharply reminded of a promise I made myself when I first felt secure: to give back what I could toward helping others avoid and overcome the struggles I experienced. I knew I had to use what I had learned in restaurants to make a difference to people who were struggling with hunger and food security right away. The first Saturday of March, my partner and I used what we had left from our stimulus checks to prepare 25 meals and hand them out for free to anyone who wanted one, at a city park between low-income housing buildings. Providing not just a meal but also a “mental health break” was important to us, so we included a baked-from-scratch dessert with every meal and made it a point to be kind to every person who came by. After seeing how grateful some of the families were to have such a small amount of relief, we knew we had to keep going. The next week we doubled the number of free meals served and accepted our first donation from a neighbor. We chose a name, Lunch People, and were joined by our first volunteers. Between March and October, Lunch People had served over 1,700 free hot meals, 140 local produce & dry goods boxes, and 1,200 reusable fabric masks through community funding and volunteer labor, showing up every Saturday rain or shine. We also showed up for the community’s needs in different ways: bringing emergency toilet paper and groceries to a single mother recovering from surgery, washing and redistributing evacuated farm produce during the wildfires, delivering hot meals to quarantined college students, and meeting unhoused neighbors with hot food, clothes, or time to talk. Coordinating all this was stressful, certainly. I felt anxious and depressed at times, and overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the problems we are addressing when we talk about mental health and food insecurity. At some point, however, it became clear that helping other people is the best way to help myself. I’d dreamed of sharing my passion for hospitality from a restaurant of my own one day, but too much of me believed that having dreams and achieving them was a luxury I could not afford and had no right to pursue. Starting Lunch People and achieving what we have this year has showed me that I don’t need to wait for permission to make my own success. Dreams are for everybody, and mine can be achieved. This month I registered a business: Lunch People LLC, a Public Benefit company with a mission to reduce the burden of hunger and strengthen the community by investing in food security and celebrating health. Though we don’t yet have enough funding to make it happen, we have an idea. Our solution is a unique not-for-profit cafe, a neighborhood plant-based eatery and resource hub which will encourage food producers, professionals and aid groups to work together under one roof in service of the community. The cafe will serve a daily donation-based hot meal, feature a free community fridge and pantry, offer workshops and classes, and operate a service industry job training program for youth, which will pay a living wage and increase employability while giving participants a confident knowledge of their rights and responsibilities as employees. The cafe will offer a safe, accessible hub for resource sharing and outreach, empowering visitors, volunteers and employees to engage toward building a strong and healthy community every day. These programs are aimed at impacting factors that contributed to my mental health issues when I was struggling the most: shame surrounding aid, food insecurity, lack of connections, lack of resources, poverty and workplace abuses. Running this not-for-profit cafe will give me a chance to use my personal experiences combined with my experience in the restaurant industry to make a significant impact for those struggling with these things now in my community, and use my own success to empower others. Our work as Lunch People has already changed my life and given me new hope for the future. I'm proud to know that we can do this, and proud to be asking for help!