On October 27, 2025, the United States Department of Agriculture announced that 42 million Americans would lose their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. Since then, approximately 5 million Americans have lost access to SNAP benefits following federal policy changes enacted in 2025.
The same day last October, Heretic Coffee in Portland, Oregon responded with its own announcement.
“If your SNAP benefits are running out, then breakfast is on us,” the coffee shop wrote on October 26 in a viral social media post.
“NO ONE should have to worry about their next meal. Portland fam, we know it’s not much, but we’ll do our best to keep you fed. Starting November 1st, each day, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.”
Instantly, people started asking how they could support their mission. Donations poured in, and — every day since — Heretic Coffee has kept their promise.
According to the owner, Josh White, they have served 11,000 meals in the past year, thanks to over $400,000 in public donations.
On Friday, September 18, White announced on social media that Heretic Coffee was joining with the Humanite Peace Collective for their next fundraising campaign: building a coffee shop in Western Gaza.
The Humanite Peace Collective, with whom White previously worked with in Iraq, is an NGO that helps people before, during, and after war. According to White, the team at Humanite has over 20 years of experience in providing food, safety, and shelter to people displaced by war.
“There are entire neighborhoods in Gaza City that are no joke, 100%, just flatlined, completely flat in rubble,” White told Good Good Good in an exclusive interview. “We want to rebuild, like literally physically rebuild a building and put a coffee shop in it. And that coffee shop will feed people every day for free, no questions asked.”
Heretic Coffee
How do you build a coffee shop in Gaza during wartime?
The game plan is full of logistical hurdles
White — who has a background as a journalist and conflict reporter — is already asking himself the hard questions that come with a task like this.
“For the first time in its existence, Heretic is having to deal with questions we would never have to deal with here. A very viable question we’ve had to ask is, what if our coffee shop gets bombed?”
White said its projected location in Western Gaza has a “90% chance of not being bombed,” but he knows that any chance is a risk.
“There’s still a chance,” White said. “You don’t know what that line is going to look like for people receiving free food. You don’t know what’s going to happen in the next six months in Gaza. You don’t know what occupation might look like.”
Although the dream for Heretic Coffee’s sister shop is currently to build a brick-and-mortar building from the rubble, White is aware that plans can change along the way.
“We’re talking about a pile of rubble that we want to rebuild,” White said. “That could mean this starts as a small 200-square-foot brick-and-mortar building. It could mean that we literally — no joke — get a cart or a tent and slap the name of the coffee shop on it.”
And that name will not be Heretic Coffee, by the way.
“The name of the coffee shop is literally going to be called the Department of Peace,” White said.
“Peace has been stripped away from the people in Gaza in an unthinkable amount. And just like it is here in the States, coffee is a sense of community, and it’s very much like that throughout the entire Middle East, and definitely was, especially in western Gaza City.”
“We thought: ‘What if we call this the Department of Peace and put the idea of what it means for Palestinians to have peace back in the hands of Palestinians?’”
The team is setting an ambitious timeline
White said that he and his team at Humanite Peace Collective already have the boots-on-the-ground to make their coffee shop possible.
“We have the people who are gonna run the cafe, we have people that are running comms for this, and like people who are going to physically build this,” White said.
“When I say we’re putting this project in the hands of the Palestinians, us Americans cannot understand the full magnitude of what they’re going through. But what we can do is we can help build this thing.”
What they currently lack is funding.
“As soon as we get $100,000, our team in Gaza is full steam ahead,” White said. “We would love to see this up and running by the end of the year. I would love to see us being able to feed people by Christmas.”
“It would take a miracle,” he admitted. “But I mean, I keep seeing miracles happen here, you know? And so it’s one of those things — are you going to trust how the universe is capitulating? Or are you just gonna think, wow, that’s a big ask?”
“And yeah, it is,” White acknowledged. “Let’s just see what happens.”
A member of the Humanite Peace Collective’s Palestine team scouting one of the locations where the The Department of Peace coffee shop may go. Courtesy of Josh White
Miracles have happened before
White knows that Heretic Coffee and the Humanite Peace Collective are setting an ambitious target. Even so, he has set and surpassed goals constantly in the last year, and the support for Heretic Coffee — both locally and online — has blown him away.
In addition to their own fundraising efforts to keep their free SNAP breakfast program running, White has been keen to help other nonprofits and mutual aid organizations.
“Anytime we’re like, hey, [charity cafe] Blanchett House, what does it cost to feed everyone there for 24 hours?’ Within an hour, we have $1,200 to feed people.” White said.
“The other day we did one for an Atlanta homeless shelter, and we raised over $6,000 in 24 hours.”
In mid-August, after a customer kicked and shattered Heretic Coffee’s front door, the community rallied again, helping the nonprofit fix its door, stay open, and keep feeding people in need.
“We raised $10,000 for our door,” White said. “So, part of me says, if we can raise $10,000 for our door, I think we can do $100,000 [for Gaza].”
But White has never gotten used to that feeling of asking for help for the mutual aid projects closest to his heart — and having his wishes fulfilled time and again.
“What an insane blessing to be a part of where, if you see a need, your community rallies within minutes,” White said.
The inspiration behind the mission
White said that this latest charitable endeavor is dedicated to his friend and co-worker Malak Mesleh.
“On July 25th, she was sitting in a coffee shop in Gaza doing some work, and that coffee shop had a bomb dropped on it,” White said.
Mesleh was one of 40 people killed in the Israeli airstrike on Al-Baqa café.
“Her story was everywhere when it happened, and then it wasn’t,” White said. “She was the top-rated female boxer in Gaza and was an icon for most Palestinian girls.”
White keeps a photo of Mesleh beside his work desk, as a constant reminder of what this mission is all about.
Malak Mesleh. Courtesy of Josh White
“I want people like Malak just to feel, just for one day, have peace and know, if I don’t have food at home, there’s a place that can feed me,” White said. “If I have any power in my privileged hands to help her people, then I’m gonna use it.”
When people walk up to the Department of Peace after it’s up and running — whether it’s a cart, a tent, or a brick-and-mortar building — White wants them to breathe easy for a few moments each day, and let the world outside melt away.
“I want them to feel at peace, and I want them to leave not hungry,” White said.
People looking to donate to the cause can visit the fundraising page for the Humanite Peace Collective.
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Featured Image: Courtesy of Josh White
