Can A Meme Save A Life? Jeff Larson Thinks It Can’t Hurt

Sitting in his car packed with empty containers, Jeff Larson scrolls through his phone to find today’s coffee meme. It’s appropriately Christmas themed, featuring two reindeers wrapped in scarves and holding mugs. Below is a joke: Why do Dasher and Dancer love coffee? Because they’re Santa’s star bucks.

“That one’s pretty good,” Larson says. “I’m amazed I haven’t run out of them.”

If anyone will reach the end of the internet’s coffee memes, it’s Jeff. Every morning, before having a cup of joe himself, he texts a meme to about 200 people.

“I send them to homeless people I have the number of,” Larson says. “It helps me keep in touch with them and find out where they’re, where they’re located, [and] where I can bring them food, clothing.”

For Larson, the memes are a connective thread to the homeless community in Rundberg. They help open a line of communication so he knows where to drop off items on his daily mobile food pantry runs. It also helps him know where not to go–individuals will often text him back and let Larson know if they’re in rehab, or in the hospital. But most importantly, it’s a buoy of hope for people in a difficult situation.

“It sounds weird,” Larson says. “[But] people know the door is open if they ever need a conversation.”

Larson hands a box of food to a woman at a gas station near St. John's Avenue.

Larson estimates that he’s been helping those experiencing homelessness for about 20 years, but in the last five years he’s focused on the Rundberg area. He had moved into the area and started volunteering with Carol’s Kindness + Food Pantry, a food bank that operates on Saturdays at the Gus Garcia Recreation Center. Almost every day, Larson helps pick up food donated from various businesses and store it at Carol’s home before it’s taken to the rec center.

“Whatever's left that we can't fit on the shelves or whatever is closer to the expiration date and won't make it till the Saturday pantry she gives to me,” Larson says. Other groups also give Larson food to distribute, including Love Serve Feed and a local Feed The City group. But Larson says the bulk of the food he distributes comes from Carol’s Kindness.

“That just blew up into an amazing thing,” Larson says. In their 2025 impact report, Carol’s Kindness + Food Pantry states they have served nearly 10,000 homeless individuals in total.

Once his car is packed with items for the day, Larson heads out. There are approximately 125 homeless individuals in District 4, according to ECHO’s 2025 Point In Time Count. Larson tries to find as many as he can. He has ‘regulars’ he sees a few times a week, and there are a couple areas he knows are popular with homeless individuals. But much of the work is driving and looking for signs: a worn path, a shopping cart, a few pieces of errant trash. But rarely do people stay in one location for long.

“I call it a shift change,” Larson says. “The old ones go away and the new ones come in and they all get replaced. …that's part of what the coffee memes are for, is because it helps me keep track of some of them.”

Larson drives around the Rundberg area, looking for signs of homeless camps.

Larson says he hears lots of different stories about what landed people in their situation. But one that often comes up is challenges with mental health, support systems, and substance abuse.

“A lot of times they just get pushed away and they end up on the streets,” Larson says. “They're trying to self-medicate and they're drinking too much or they're doing all this when they just need treatment.”

According to a report from the [Kaiser Family Foundation](https://www.kff.org/medicaid/five-key-facts-about-people-experiencing-homelessness/#:~:text=*%20Serious%20Mental%20Illness%20(SMI)%20(22%25%20of,*%20HIV/AIDS.%20(2%25%20of%20Adults%20Experiencing%20Homelessness) "kaiser family foundation"), roughly 22% of adults experiencing homelessness met the criteria for serious mental illness, compared to 6% of the general population. That same study found that roughly 18% of homeless adults were identified as having a chronic substance abuse disorder, compared to 3% of the general population. While the report didn’t study the overlap of these conditions, other reports have shown a high comorbidities between mental health issues and substance abuse disorders.

It’s a correlation that Larson knows well. After suffering a traumatic brain injury during a car wreck years ago, Larson found himself struggling with mental health issues. He began to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol before stepping into recovery.

“I've had my rock bottom and that's why I've been clean and sober now for over ten years. But when I go out on the streets and I see the bottom that some people are living at and … it affects me,” Larson says. “It helps me to feel confident in my recovery and be able to guide other people in their recovery.”

For Larson, recovery starts with an act of kindness. A sandwich and a conversation may eventually lead to a sober living facility. But at the end of the day, Larson hopes to just be a friend.

“They really are just like me and I really am just like them,” Larson says. “They're amazing people. They really are. They're just having a hard time right now.”

Larson prays with a man looking for items in a dumpster.