Punks With Lunch serves up hope

The holidays might be officially over, but a benefit show for Punks With Lunch Lansing, a nonprofit guerrilla organization providing food and other necessities to locals in need, aims to keep that giving vibe going Saturday at The Avenue Café.

The event will not only raise money and donations of canned food and winter clothing; it will also feature live musical performances from Dear Heretic, Pancho Villa’s Skull, Former Critics and She/Her/Hers. Beyond that, raffle tickets are available for $5 each, with chances to win prizes donated by local artists and businesses. 

For those wanting to donate, Punks With Lunch asks for pantry items, canned foods and snacks. Clothing, like winter hats, gloves, hand warmers and coats, is also recommended.

“Our goal is similar to previous fundraisers,” said co-founder Julia Miller. “With it being wintertime, our supply, outreach and service needs increase. We distribute a lot of winter wear, gloves, hats and hand warmers. We have more people stopping in to warm up at the harm reduction office at The Fledge. We like to have extra warm gear on hand and sandwiches or other ready-to-eat food for people who stop by.” 

Aside from raising funds to pay for things like bread, peanut butter and jelly and essential clothing items, Punks With Lunch has other missions.

“We also are always promoting harm reduction,” Miller said, “like getting Narcan out to the community, training people on how to use it.” 

Since it was co-founded in 2017 by Miller and Martin Mashon, Punks With Lunch has steadily grown into a team of four part-time employees, thanks to a grant. The team now oversees programs like needle exchanges, donation drives, pop-ups and other events. Alongside the main employees, around 15 regular volunteers and a handful of other occasional volunteers help the cause. 

“We’ve evolved in so many ways,” Miller said. “We started as just a few people with some sandwiches and a few pairs of gloves I got at the dollar store. I’d do stuff on the weekend. Now, we are doing our weekend distros and have a harm reduction and needle exchange distro site inside The Fledge. That operates five days a week. People can pick up supplies — like harm reduction and hygiene supplies, menstrual products, snacks, sandwiches, socks and more.” 

The Punks With Lunch team also works with local recovery groups to assist people who use drugs to “explore recovery options” like looking into treatment and considering other potentially life-changing opportunities.

“We partner with LAAN (Lansing Area AIDS Network) to offer days to get free HIV testing,” Miller said. “We work to advocate for the unhoused to help find housing options, advocate for warming stations. We get donations from Panera and Groovy Donuts and have the TARDIS Public Food Pantry that helps provide food to people daily.”

“We’ve been able to expand our outreach efforts to other communities and help other people and programs in other counties and even states,” Miller added. “We’ve partnered with numerous harm reduction agencies to grow, to end stigma against people who use drugs or are unhoused. We’re pretty much doing something seven days a week.”