Goal: 100 Filled Backpacks, 100 Blankets in the Hands of Local Homeless Folks

The Humanity Heroes both with backpacks for 100 homeless.

The Humanity Heroes both with backpacks for 100 homeless. [All photos by Emily Hobelmann]

This past Sunday, the nonprofit Humanity Heroes joined with local cannabis distribution and processing company Green Ox* in front of St. Vincent de Paul on 3rd St. in Old Town Eureka in order to distribute 100 provisions-packed backpacks and 100 blankets to community members in need.

The effort to get the backpacks full of safety, comfort, and hygiene items directly into homeless hands was assisted by UPLIFT Eureka, a program run by the Eureka Community Services Department in an effort to address and prevent homelessness.

Kyle Preciado CEO of Green Ox

Kyle Preciado CEO of Green Ox.

According to their website, Humanity Heroes is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit “that takes a hands-on approach to help ease the suffering of the homeless.” Green Ox’s Co-Founder and CEO Kyle Preciado has done some work with the charitable organization in the past. When Humanity Heroes recently reached out to Green Ox to help coordinate a backpack distribution event here in Humboldt County, Preciado said he was immediately on board.

The backpack distribution was essentially by appointment, as UPLIFT Eureka distributed vouchers in advance with designated pick up times in order to enable social distancing. “We didn’t really want 100 people showing up at the same time,” said UPLIFT Eureka Program Coordinator Jeff Davis.

Jeff Davis with the City of Eureka

Jeff Davis with the City of Eureka.

“About 80-85 packs are being handed out today,” he continued, with the rest being hand-delivered to people that couldn’t physically make it.

The backpacks contain first aid kits, flashlights, toiletries, hand sanitizers and other basic gear, like hats and gloves, things that Davis says are really needed right now in the midst of the winter season and the ongoing global health and economic crises associated with Covid.

This past year, Humanity Heroes has distributed about 5,000 backpacks like this throughout the state, Preciado says, “so we’re part of this larger effort” to give the recipients “the opportunity to have a little more comfort inside of whatever element or space they’re exposed to.”

ason-Hayenga-with-Green-Ox

Jason Hayenga with Green Ox. 

Green Ox employee Jason Hayenga was on-hand to help at the distribution event, and he believes this sort of direct supplies distribution event is especially effective because a charitable donation doesn’t do any good “unless it gets out to the people who need it.”

Hayenga experienced homelessness for about six weeks when he first started at Green Ox, although he says he endured this period without shelter by choice — he considers it a necessary part of his path to his current stable living and work situation.

He is one of 83 employees at Green Ox, employees that span all walks of life from all types of backgrounds, Preciado says, from PhDs to some less fortunate individuals in the community. Hayenga had moved to Humboldt from Modesto at the start of 2020, then wound up sheltering in place at one of the Arcata House shelters in the spring with the onset of Covid-related shut downs.

With help from the farm labor contractor and staffing agency Emerald Employment, Hayenga put together a resume, got on Indeed.com and found work “out at farms, bucking and trimming.” At this point, he was camping out, so he kept looking for steady work in town. “Luckily the cannabis industry… was up and running at that point.”

By the time he landed an interview with Green Ox, he was well-versed in the practice of setting trimmers up with raw material to process, and he was deemed hireable. It did take him some time to get housing once he started at Green Ox, but “I don’t want to make it sound like I was on the streets destitute,” he says. He was a man with resources and a mission, and his persistence combined with the wherewithal to lean on Emerald Employment for help finding work helped Hayenga land on his feet.

 

A man visits the Greenox blanket booth.

A man visits the Green Ox blanket booth.

The use of such community resources, public and otherwise, combined with the use of the basic hygiene items provided in the backpacks can give someone the confidence or ability to help them get a job or improve their lives, Preciado says. “That’s something we’ve seen work first hand at the Green Ox.”

Cannabis businesses, having been deemed essential and are allowed to operate during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the concerted effort of local cannabis businesses to give back to the community during this time is a welcome trend, Davis says.

UPLIFT has worked with other cannabis companies in the past. Notably Papa & Barkley participates in their Pathway to Payday program, which features four days of seminars, workshops, and mock interviews, leading into real interviews and, ideally, real jobs.

Davis appreciates that this is “a community effort to address this complex problem that we’re facing,” an effort to pump some time and money back into the community — above and beyond the required payments of fees and taxes.

Green Ox booth with blankets

Booth with colorful blankets available.

As a significant portion of the cannabis industry now exists in a legitimized context in California, its companies advertise employment opportunities on websites like Indeed.com and Craigslist. People seeking work need email addresses, resumes and references, a dramatic departure from the primarily word-of-mouth sourced workforce of the industry’s past.

By partnering with organizations in the same vein as UPLIFT Eureka and Humanity Heroes, cannabis businesses can help with the distribution of tactile resources to people in need, while also increasing their exposure to the community at large. Furthermore, direct participation in community-oriented philanthropic programs enables cannabis businesses to let the community know that employment in the industry is within reach for all types of people, but resumes and references may be required.

*Please note Green Ox is an advertiser on this website.

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cu2morrow
Guest
cu2morrow
3 years ago

Outstanding !

Yay!!!
Guest
Yay!!!
3 years ago

Super frighin awesome!!!!
There are so many great things going on behind the scenes in our county, tbank you kym for sharing good news.

Am very happy to see the cannabis industry giving back. When i first got in the biz the elders in our community were very clear that part of growing herb here is giving back to create the community we’d like to have.

How do we connect with UPLIFT Eureka?
Perhaps so hum needs such a group.

Kym Kemp
Admin
3 years ago
Reply to  Yay!!!
Lisa
Guest
Lisa
3 years ago
Reply to  Yay!!!

You can contact UPLIFT Eureka through their Facebook page or by calling 707-268-1844.

https://m.facebook.com/uplifteureka/?ref=bookmarks

Ben Round
Guest
Ben Round
3 years ago

Let’s honor all the people and organizations involved in this important effort. Kudos!
And thank you Kym for doing your part to share this information.

Pike Mortar
Guest
Pike Mortar
3 years ago

I’ve seen a few red backpacks lying on the side of the road over the past week. I presume this would be their point of origin.

Shrapnel
Guest
Shrapnel
3 years ago
Reply to  Pike Mortar

Perfect for transporting drugs, scales & crack pipes… A bit of a bright color though. Then they can dump them on the river bar with the rest of the trash & feces. If y’all want to “ease the suffering of the homeless”, they’d probably be more stoked with a bag of dope & a bottle of booze. Perhaps a better way to make an effort & spend that cannabis money would be to clean the homeless camps, roadways & river bars of the junky trash & poop everywhere. Good talk.

Jeffersonian
Guest
Jeffersonian
3 years ago
Reply to  Shrapnel

Yep and build a barracks so we can get them off the streets and bay edges and river bars and take their drugs away and give them productive things to do.

Memy Selfandi
Guest
Memy Selfandi
3 years ago
Reply to  Jeffersonian

Right, go ahead and devour the already suffering. Cannibalism is usually kind enough to wait for people to be dead…you’d rather dig right in while people are still breathing, even if barely. They are not slaves. Some need hard work and others need care…have to know them as people to decipher who needs what.

Willow Creeker
Guest
Willow Creeker
3 years ago
Reply to  Shrapnel

Yep it just makes people feel good but does nothing about the problem. Quit coddling them- that would go a long way to help them help themselves.

Memy Selfandi
Guest
Memy Selfandi
3 years ago
Reply to  Willow Creeker

Coddling is more a problem of people with the resources to be coddled. Most homeless are suffering…especailly any who are not in their young adulthood and even many of them.

Chachy
Guest
Chachy
3 years ago

This is amazing to see Green Ox helping out people in need!

Infrequent commenter
Guest
Infrequent commenter
3 years ago

I would like to see these efforts put into teaching these homeless people that could work how to improve themselves and get a job, thereby supporting themselves and quit being enabled by all the free handouts they get. Enabling them to do nothing to help themselves is not the answer.

Mendocino Mamma
Guest
Mendocino Mamma
3 years ago

Great job!!!

Carol Sylla
Guest
Carol Sylla
3 years ago

This is an awesome thing to do!

best of intentions but
Guest
best of intentions but
3 years ago

We can look forward to these items littered all over.

Kill Kenny
Guest
Kill Kenny
3 years ago

Where’s My free Stuff??!!

I actually work and don’t poop on the sidewalks like a good boy!

Lynn H
Guest
Lynn H
3 years ago

That’s awesome!

Memy Selfandi
Guest
Memy Selfandi
3 years ago

All the bitter people here who think they are the only ones who work hard (if they even do, many just likely blowhards, LOL) are showing disregard that many homeless have known since birth and we expect them to care when relatively resourced people can’t be bothered?
Yes the things given out will show up later as litter, just like housed people only more exhausted, freezing and hungry and suffering from many emotional wounds while zero safety.
We’d all do better to require our Country to invest in housing for all, quality housing and meanwhile this is a bandaid that is humane and commendable.

Memy Selfandi
Guest
Memy Selfandi
3 years ago

Thank you for actively caring about and mitigating folks suffering. We need more systemic proactive assurances and meanwhile charity from the industry-du jour is something.