Jim, formerly homeless, launches his new restaurant in Portland. Your support helped him graduate from our recovery program. Homelessness ends!
From OregonLive.com: “Recipe for Redemption“
The lunch rush started a little after 1 p.m. and the order was big: Four sandwiches. Four salads. Coke. Iced tea.
Jim Jenkins stood in the kitchen at his new restaurant in Southeast Portland and got to work, cutting bread, loading up meat, bobbing his head to the hip-hop on the radio. He’d come a long way from the Portland Rescue Mission, a long way from addiction and homelessness and lost hope.
Before he sobered up, Jenkins was a 32-year-old divorced cook with a criminal record, a son he never saw and a lifetime of deep regret behind him. He drank every day, smoked a lot of pot and occasionally dabbled in cocaine and pills.
Now Jenkins is the co-owner and manager of the Crossroads Kitchen, which opened last week on Southeast 17th Avenue and Harney Street.
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