For the past 30 years, Peace House has coordinated a free community meal called Uncle Food’s Diner in Ashland. The full service dinner program began in response to an emerging need in our community to provide a hot, nutritious meal to help fill the gaps in food security and provide a compassionate environment where all are welcome.

During these past three decades, Uncle Food’s Diner has taken a variety of forms, in response to the shifting needs of hungry people in the Rogue Valley. For more than 15 years, the United Methodist Church in Ashland hosted the meal in their Wesley Hall, where on average 100 people gathered each Tuesday. The Tuesday Community Meal included a full dinner menu, as well as fresh produce, and social services including faith leaders, health care workers, and cooks offered a comfortable respite service for those in need of support. 

Then, when COVID shut down many food programs and isolated individuals and families, Peace House provided a crisis response in coordination, together with our partners, and delivered hot meals to five locations across Ashland, seven days a week. During this phase, Uncle Food’s employed five full time cooks, purchased a delivery van, and provided full day meal bags for approximately 100 people a day, four days per week. Then, when the Almeda fire displaced thousands of people, our project responded by contributing meals to fire survivors housed in local hotels and campgrounds, and supported emergency workers whenever necessary. 

During that two year period, we served more than 120,000 meals. 

In 2024, Uncle Foods Diner serves meals at Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Ashland from 4:30-6:00 p.m. We continue to provide a minimum of 100 meals each week to folks who can make it to the meal. We also deliver hot meals to the Night Lawn – a designated area for unhoused people to camp in Ashland,  and to people who are shut into their homes from illness or disability.

Please contact Kerul Dyer at editor @ peacehouse.net to learn about our operations!