https://www.milkcratekitchen.org/

MCK PDX inc, PO Box 12563, Portland, OR (2026)

05/30/2026

Shoutout to our volunteer on the road, onsite, and at home today! 14 people to make 80 home deliveries possible. Check out the map of where we went. Even though the Portland Junior Rose Parade made us pivot to set up 1 block down from our kitchen, not even the closed streets stopped us from getting cooked meals out to 80 households.

We’ll be back in the kitchen in two hours to meet the families who opted for Meal Pickups. Is this you? See you between 3:30-5:00pm at the usual MCK location.

05/29/2026

Chef is always looking for ways to make our meals Gluten Free and this week we are highlighting a little known grain called Sorghum. This Gluten Free Grain has been cultivated for over 5000 years and is packed in protein and vitamins!

🧑‍🧒🧑‍🧑‍🧒 THIS IS FAMILY MEAL WEEK 🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒🧑‍🧒‍🧒
✨ 100 Family Meal slots were opened at 9:52am on Wednesday, May 27.
🙀 The list was full in 41 minutes!!!!
🍽️ Mediterranean Sorghum Salad with Roasted Squash, Greens, Onions, and Vegetables. The menu is (GF, DF, NF). Herbed Chicken or Tempeh (VG).

💡REMEMBER—
- Each family meal has 4 servings
- Fully cooked, plated in an aluminum oven-safe pan
- Always has protein, complex carbs, vegetables
- Reheat and eat, keeps for 6 days refrigerated

⚡ AFTER TODAY, THE NEXT FAMILY MEAL
- Form reopens on Wednesday, June 10.

🚨WHAT IS NEW THIS WEEK?
- Pickup is moved to the afternoon this Saturday 3:30pm-5:00pm due to the daytime Junior Rose Parade street closures around MCK space.
- We are keeping the number of signup slots at 100

⚠️ IF YOU MISSED SIGNING UP THIS WEEK—
- Please add your name to the Interest List
- We accommodate & prioritize meal access using it.

❓WHERE ELSE ARE MCK MEALS AVAILABLE?
- We continue to increase our meal output through utilization cooking: MCK Chopped. Cooking fresh and rescued ingredients into nutrient-dense meals using what we gleaned.
- Unlike the Family Meal program, MCK Chopped produces Grab N Go meals based on a surprise menu where each meal is packaged with two servings and is always labeled with allergens present (or avoided).
- Quantities available are limited and offered to free fridges, mutual aid, and community partners

So much of my work is logistics planning and following up making sure the food moves efficiently and safely. In the kitchen, Casper gives instructions to ensure when someone says “I’ve got hands”, they are put to task without wasted time. It really takes a village to do this work.

Sherielyn

05/27/2026

675 Grab n Go meals to 14 different community partners were donated last week. All made possible through in-kind donations of food by local farmers, restaurants, and nonprofit food pantries and food banks.

-We made fresh salads using locally grown vegetables from the Montavilla Farmers Market.
-We hand-cut and hand-sliced locally-made breads from two local bakeries, Ken’s Artisan Bread & Grand Central Bakery and turned them into a sweet bread pudding.
-We used ginger purée donated by Dragonfly Coffee.
-We cooked a Milk-braised pork with mashed potatoes made possible by the meat donation from Lardo.
-We bought more pork to roast and slice and served it on a bed of root hash using vegetables donated by Flying Coyote Farms.
-We donated bagels made by Henry Higgins to our friends at the Community for Positive Aging.
-We continue to re-donate gleaned and paid-forward six-pack tamales made by a hyper-local mutual aid group called Sellwood Tamales Club to families affected by 🧊
-We continue the tradition of free grocery shopping after each kitchen shift inviting our volunteers to fill a bag, after giving their time and labor towards our mission

This week we switch who we distribute food to from Community Partners to directly to households. Stay tuned for our next post on what we will be preparing!

One more thing…
This Sunday, make time to shop these vendors at the :
-Eloise Organic Farm
-The Urban Acres Homestead
-Happiness Family Farms
-Glasrai Farm
-Poppy Shop baked goods
-Henry Higgins bagels
-Ground Source Farm
-Farrah Farm
-Crooked Furrow Farm
-Yolkan Farm

🫶🏽

05/22/2026

The past six days in photos.

Weekday, weekend, they’re all the same. Hunger doesn’t take a day off. Here at Milk Crate Kitchen, we turn rustic whole loaves of breads into sweet or savory bread pudding. We take farmers market-rescued vegetables into fresh crispy salads with our house made dressings. We take donated protein meat and plant-based whole ingredients and add our own touch to create soups.
• An appetizer to you is a full meal to another person.
• A plate of dessert to you is the only meal someone else will eat that day.

Overcoming barriers to food security by cooking and delivering cost-free meals to anyone in need, no questions asked. I am feeling so much gratitude for everyone who.continues to support our mission. Farmers, bakers, chefs, line cooks, food distributors, volunteers, neighbors, schools, donors, and our landlord (Rose City Park Presbyterian Church).

Humility and gratitude, always.

Onwards,
Sherielyn

PS, Let’s give our chef this Saturday off. He’s been working every single day for weeks now. If anyone sees him in the kitchen, please give him a hard time 🫶🏽.

05/18/2026

How do you do it????

How do we distribute 1600+ meals in 11 days. I honestly don't know, but Sherielyn does. Galvanizing dozens of volunteers, coordinating 75+ stops in less than 2 hours (twice in 8 days), and working with a dozen mutual aids, non profits and community partners to get hundreds of meals to those in need.

Logistically it's daunting. But with the help of all the volunteers, Sherielyn does it.

Week in and week out.

This is why MCK is so important. Getting healthy delicious meals to those in need.

-Casper

05/16/2026

1654 meals in 11 days.

Most take a slow approach when coming back from any break. Ease into things.
Not us.
This was our last eleven days.

Qty: 95 family meals (375 portions)
Sweet Heat Chicken or Tempeh with Southern Succotash

Qty: 165 24oz portion
Beet Salad pickled onion, beets, apples, pears vinaigrette, greens and croutons (contains soy and gluten) (Vegan)

Qty: 83 24oz portion
Apple Pear Maple Bread Pudding (Vegetarian)
Contains: egg, dairy, gluten and nuts

Qty: 63 24oz portion
Chicken and Beet Salad pickled onion, beets, apples, pears vinaigrette, greens and croutons (contains soy and gluten)

Qty: 49 16oz portion
Chipotle Sweet Potato soup

Qty: 55 16oz portion
Beef and Barley Soup

Qty: 100 family meal (400 portions)
Bbq Chicken or tofu with potato salad, broccoli salad and coleslaw

Qty: 99 16 oz portion
Greens Gumbo

Qty:77 24 oz portion
Eggplant Parmesan

Qty: 168 24 oz portion
Caesar Chopped Salad

Qty: 120 24 oz portion
Spiced Pear Bread Pudding

So yes, we were busy. Time doesn't stop for anyone under any circumstances. When you don't know what to do, do what you know.

We know food.
We know how to make it.
We know the need is there.
We know how to get it to those in need.

-Casper

05/09/2026

Seasoned with love. Fully cooked. Hand sliced.
Friday afternoon prep for 100 (400 servings or portions) x Family Meals. Sweet Heat chicken coming at you tomorrow. Not pictured is the roasted tempeh for the vegan folks and all the vegetables in the Succotash.

Milk Crate Kitchen, more than just handing out food. Casper founded Milk Crate Kitchen during a pandemic.
Six years later, since he began a mutual aid project.
Five years as a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization.
Standing strong through the strength of this community.
Giving hope and fighting food insecurity since April ‘20.

05/07/2026

Furlough sucks. It hurts our precious and suuuper valuable Educators. So for you impacted by this (school staff) of Portland Public Schools, this extra 20 spots are for YOU!

HOW *THIS* SPECIFIC SIGNUP WORKS—
Serving a choice of Sweet Heat With Chicken or Tempeh (VG), Southern succotash and Veggies (GF, DF, NF), email us at [email protected] to request one! We will follow up with a special link to submit your meal request to MCK’s online form. Window remains open until 12pm Friday. After which MCK will offer the remaining of the 20 slots to those on the Interest List.

When the form is open, you are able to make a Family Meal request and choose from home delivery or pickup. You can find all the information on our website which is www.milkcratekitchen.org under the ‘Request a Meal’ page.

REMEMBER—-Each family meal has 4 servings-Fully cooked, plated in an aluminum oven-safe pan-Always has protein, complex carbs, vegetables-Reheat and eat, keeps for 6 days refrigerated

IF YOU MISSED SIGNING UP THIS WEEK—Please add your name to the Interest List-We accommodate & prioritize meal access using it.

AFTER TODAY, THE NEXT FAMILY MEAL —Form reopens on Wednesday, May 13.

📌THIS IS A SPECIAL FAMILY MEAL WEEK❣️
To make up for needing to cancel our full production during a family emergency last week. This week, 80 Family Meal slots were opened at 10:54am, yesterday, Wednesday, May 6. The list filled in 2 hours. This even with being delayed refreshing the website due to unexpected morning staffing changes on top of technical issues 😮‍💨. Thank you to the 80 individuals who persevered and kept refreshing their browser. Also, sorry it felt like a stressful journey. Wednesday was 💯% 🫪😵‍💫 here.

To summarize, this week we are prepared to make a total of 100 Family Meals. Twenty slots remain reserved for School Staff and Educators impacted by the related May 1st furlough. This week is also Teacher Appreciation Week. Know a teacher in the PPS district? Tag them here so they know of this limited-time opportunity!

05/04/2026

⏰ 9 days left to help us meet our goal! *Can* you help us?!

Attention everyone!
🤗 Exciting opportunity to help Milk Crate Kitchen recycle eligible cans and bottles and raise some money for food storage supplies! BottleDrop matched 20% of all funds raised during April 16 - 26 for their ‘Earth Week Give’ campaign. Thank you to those who helped us!

But wait, we set a bigger goal of collecting 100 Blue Bags thru May 16th so that means you have 1.5 weeks to gather as many cans as you ‘can.’ And then keep collecting… because the funds you raise via BottleDrop go to Milk Crate Kitchen year-round! Each bag typically raises $8 which provides 2 family meals to the community. That’s 8 servings of nutrient-dense, chef-prepared meals, no questions asked.

Volunteers at MCK?
Happening now, we encourage you to take home empty blue bags and sticker QR code labels to fill and drop off at your local drop door (link in bio)! Give one to a friend, a family member, a neighbor.
Please reach out to Sara Pedro with any questions.

Want to help us?
Send an email to [email protected] if you need supplies, help with a full bag pickup, or help transporting to an site.

05/03/2026

Man, it has been a minute since we cooked in a hot kitchen on a Sunday afternoon! This picture was taken two Sundays ago by Paté one of our kitchen regulars.

After a few days of production break this week, MCK is back in the kitchen from 1-4pm 🥵☀️ today making meals for two Portland Public Schools! Deliveries will be made tomorrow morning to:
1. Rosa Parks Elementary School
2. Grout Elementary School
These meals are passed out by the school social workers to the student families experiencing food insecurity.

I’m gutted that PPS did a furlough day on May 1st. Our educators are so important to the whole-person approach in ensuring our children and the youth are supported in and outside of the classrooms. If you have read this far, please do one or all of these—
-get involved with your neighborhood meetings
-Join and attend the PTA meetings
-Follow the PPS budget listening sessions
-Follow the Portland Children’s Levy grants program
-Get to know all the many ways that different agencies and systems in place are supporting (or rolling back) education, mental health, after-school, mentoring, youth sports, and nutrition services

You may think that just because you don’t have a school-aged child that the decisions made now do not affect your life. It does. Someone in our orbit is impacted by the ongoing PPS budget deficit. Pay attention. Also, put your money where your mouth is. Education = prevention. Nutrition = prevention. They go hand in hand, too. Can’t teach someone how to succeed in life when the teacher is on empty stomach. Cannot retain new learning when the student has an empty stomach. I can go on and on about how when the systems fail, the dominoes will fall. You get what I mean!

Be nice to teachers. Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week. How will you show your gratitude for the persons we spent more hours in a day with from age 6 to 18?

Sherielyn

MCK PDX inc

05/30/2026

05/29/2026

05/27/2026

05/22/2026

05/18/2026

05/16/2026

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05/03/2026

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