Salt Lake City chef relaunches ‘Burrito Project’ to feed people living on the streets

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah chef who once relied on a homeless shelter himself is relaunching a project he started years ago to help people now living on the streets of Salt Lake City.

Chef and business owner Jorge Fierro has restarted the “Burrito Project,” a volunteer effort that prepares and hands out hot burritos to people experiencing homelessness. The project first began about 16 years ago, but shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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When Fierro first arrived in the United States, he said he didn’t speak English, didn’t know anyone and landed at the Rescue Mission and men’s shelter in Salt Lake City.

“I learned through a guy from Puerto Rico back then that a pretty high number of our homeless population are vets from different wars,” Fierro said. “I thought that it was just so sad to see people that have given their lives, you know, for our freedoms and our liberties in the streets.”

He said that the experience stayed with him and eventually pushed him to act. With access to a commercial kitchen and tortillas, rice and beans from his business, Fierro partnered with local cycling groups and volunteers to start making hundreds of burritos at a time and delivering them directly to unsheltered people around the city.

“What this is basically is through volunteers,” he said. “People will come to my place around 5, 5:30. We would heat up three, four, five hundred tortillas. My cooks would have the mix of rice and beans. And then we will make the burritos hot, roll them, wrap them, put them in insulated bags, and then go on bicycles and/or cars or walking and just find homeless people and feed them.”

Before the pandemic, the project had grown to four nights a week. Fierro said COVID-19, along with changes in his business location and strict USDA and FDA rules on bringing volunteers into his food production space, forced him to shut the Burrito Project down.

Recently, he said, a new solution appeared.

“We finally got a food truck, and we decided that we were going to start the Burrito Project using the food truck outside of my building,” Fierro said. “When there is a will, there is always a way. And so I decided that I wanted to restart the project. And in this case, I wanted to get more people involved.”

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Volunteers now help prep and assemble burritos from the truck, then fan out to locations where people are living outdoors. Fierro said the time commitment is about two hours: heat tortillas, make burritos, then deliver them.

He emphasized that while donations of socks, water or hygiene kits are welcome, what the project needs most is people showing up.

“We go and feed the homeless and hope that they can feel like we love them and that we see them, that we don’t ignore them,” Fierro said. “I think that people need to know that our homeless population needs to be accounted for and we need to be kind to them.”

After the first night back, Fierro said the response from volunteers and the community was strong enough that he is already considering increasing the schedule from once a week to two or even three times a week, as long as there is consistent help.

He said part of his goal is to raise awareness about how “blessed” many people are by comparison — and to give families a tangible way to serve together. Some volunteers, he noted, have chosen to spend less on presents and instead bring their kids to help assemble burritos or purchase items like socks and coats to hand out alongside the food.

Fierro said he has “pay it forward” tattooed on his arm and sees the Burrito Project as one way to live that out.

“You don’t realize how much you have until you do a project like this and realize there are people who literally have nothing,” he said. “We’re not judges. We don’t judge anybody. We just go and feed them and hope they feel seen.”

Anyone interested in volunteering or supporting the Burrito Project can contact Fierro directly at jorge@ricobrandfoods.com.