Empower Generations: Help Us Provide Meals for 200 Families

Pagliacci will match all donations up to $5k in meals!

Earlier this month, Friends of the Children reached out, hoping we could donate a few gift cards to help provide meals for their 200 families. We knew we could do more. For every donation up to $5,000, Pagliacci will match it, with the goal of providing a meal for each family in the program. Every contribution, big or small, brings us closer to ensuring these families enjoy a special holiday meal.

Friends of the Children is an organization quietly working behind the scenes, day in and day out, to bring about generational change by empowering youth. Founded in 2000, Friends is dedicated to helping children facing the toughest systematic barriers in our community — poverty, foster care, housing insecurity, and more. Salaried, professional mentors are paired with young people, and Friends stays with them for 12+ years, no matter what. Because their evidence-based, long-term mentoring model has proven effective, they were recognized by Mackenzie Scott in 2022 with a $44 million gift to the national organization, including $5.1 million for the Seattle and Tacoma chapters.

We first encountered Friends of the Children a few years ago when Stefan Hauser, the community engagement manager for Friends of the Children–Seattle, reached out to us. Their office is just down the street from our Columbia City store. We started by hosting a pizza-tossing event and providing gift cards for mentors to take their mentees out for meals. Then we sponsored an encore with a career day element.

“It was super awesome to see the youth have fun and become pros at pizza throwing,” says Lauren Ho, Friends’ Marketing & Events Coordinator. “Then, transitioning to the career day portion, it was great to see them get the chance to dive into the behind-the-scenes of Pagliacci, ask questions, and learn about the different roles and departments that are involved in keeping Pagliacci running!”

With their 25th Anniversary approaching, we’re stepping up our support to inspire the Pagliacci community to help Friends of the Children break the cycle of generational poverty. By nurturing long-term relationships rooted in love, acceptance, and culturally informed practices, Friends changes lives and creates generational impacts that ripple through our city.

Every donation makes a difference—join us in giving today! (click here).