The roots
Punks With Lunch began in Oakland, California in 2015 as a simple response to a visible need. A small group of young people who spent time at a local skate park noticed that unhoused neighbors nearby were going without food. They started making sandwiches and handing them out. There was no organization, no funding, and no permission asked. Just people feeding people.
That simple model spread. Over time, small Punks With Lunch chapters formed in different cities across the country, each responding to local needs in their own way. While chapters share a name and a spirit, each operates independently. Punks With Lunch Lansing is not governed by the original charter, but we carry forward the same core idea that started it all. If people are being left behind, we show up.
The name Punks With Lunch comes from reclaiming how society often treats people experiencing hunger, homelessness, or substance use. People who fall outside what is considered acceptable or productive are ignored, criminalized, or discarded. We reject that. We believe those neighbors are not outside the community. They are part of it.
We do not make assumptions about why someone needs support. We do not rank worthiness. We do not require sobriety, paperwork, or explanations. If someone comes to us hungry, cold, sick, or in crisis, we respond.
Some of the people we serve use drugs. Some are in recovery. Some are navigating mental health challenges. Some are just trying to survive another day. Our role is not to judge or control. Our role is to reduce harm, share information, and help people stay alive.
Our values are not abstract. They are practiced every day. Love, acceptance, grace, inclusion, and forgiveness show up in how we talk to people, how we hire staff, how we respond in crisis, and how we advocate publicly.
Punks with lunch lansing
Punks With Lunch Lansing began in 2017, when Julia Miller and Martin Mashon started handing out sandwiches and basic supplies to unhoused neighbors around the city. The name came from the inspiration of the original group in California, but the work was tailored for our local needs. What started with a wagon and a few volunteers grew quickly because the need was real and visible.
From the start, outreach happened where people already were. Parks, encampments, sidewalks, and public spaces. Food was the entry point, but relationships were the foundation. As trust grew, people shared what they actually needed. Hygiene supplies. Clothing. Safer use of supplies. Naloxone. Wound care. Someone to help them get to treatment. Someone to check on them after an overdose. Someone who would come back.
As the work expanded, Martin helped establish the TARDIS style public pantry on Michigan Avenue, creating twenty-four-hour access to food. When seating was removed from Reutter Park, we helped purchase and install picnic tables so community members still had a place to sit with dignity. Those tables are still there today.
The street outreach team model developed during these early years, focusing on going directly to encampments and places where services were not reaching. Harm reduction support including naloxone distribution and safer use supplies became part of the work well before formal recognition.
In 2021, Punks With Lunch became a registered nonprofit and was officially designated as a Syringe Services Program. This allowed the organization to strengthen and expand work that was already happening while staying rooted in community led care.
Today, Punks With Lunch operates across Ingham, Eaton, and Shiawassee counties with two locations, ten staff, and mobile outreach teams working throughout the week. We provide food access, harm reduction services, overdose response, treatment navigation, and crisis support.
We intentionally hire people with lived experience, including people who are unhoused or actively using substances. Their knowledge shapes everything we do. The information they bring helps us respond faster, smarter, and with real understanding while also offering stability and paid work.
We maintain a Quick Response Team that shows up after overdoses and crises. We provide naloxone trainings. We advocate publicly for policies that keep people alive. We are building a mobile shower and laundry bus because dignity includes access to cleanliness and privacy.
Punks With Lunch has grown, but the reason it exists has not changed. We show up when others do not. We keep people alive. We show up for all our neighbors with love and support.
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