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Food giveaways also take place at events such as the organization’s Harvest and Winter festivals, and about 125 packages of food are delivered weekly to two food pantries.
But St. John says expanding access is not just about giveaways, but also ensuring affordability to paying customers.
“What we sell on the North Side for $1, we sell for 50 cents in Englewood,” she says. “If you have Link, it is an additional 50% off. We also take senior citizen coupons. We do that with our local markets and pop-ups.”
They have partnered with the University of Illinois Chicago’s Englewood clinic to provide fresh produce to about 25 patients with diabetes and other food-related chronic conditions.
Growing Home also offers cooking demonstrations, recipe cards and other services to show customers how to prepare meals in a healthy way.
NUTRITION CLOSE TO HOME
When Benita Lindsey lived in South Shore seven years ago, she traveled up to an hour to reach a supermarket. She didn’t have a car at the time, so she rode public transit. But now that the retired government worker lives in Englewood, she shops at Growing Home.
She especially enjoys its peaches, pears, tomatoes and greens of all types.
For the last four years, she and a neighbor have volunteered every Thursday to pack donation boxes and assist on market days. She thinks that many in her community are unaware of Growing Home and are missing out.
“In this neighborhood, I think that’s why we have so much diabetes and cancer, because we are not eating right,” she says.
The pandemic caused demand to skyrocket at Pan de Vida starting in April 2020, when the Little Village food pantry was feeding 400 families weekly. By June, it was feeding 6,000 families through drive-ups and home deliveries, with the help of the Greater Chicago Food Depository. That was about 30,000 people.
In June, the pantry moved into a remodeled grocery space and was renamed Pan de Vida Fresh Market by its owners, New Life Centers and New Life Community Church Little Village. With shopping carts, Spanish music playing and brightly colored murals outside, it doesn’t look like the typical food pantry.
Residents can select their own items, up to 50 pounds of food once a week, says Rosario Dominguez, communications and marketing director at New Life Centers. Up to 150 families are served daily, Tuesday through Saturday. An outdoor produce market operates every other Friday.
Many of the seniors who visit the pantry live alone, Dominguez says. “The staff is definitely aware of that, and they’re willing to be a listening ear for them and to see their needs beyond just the food.”
STRUGGLING TO STAY AFLOAT
Like the communities where they’re located, some food businesses are struggling.
Cedillo’s Fresh Produce, an immigrant-owned family farm, has faced multiple challenges this year.
Without employees during the growing season, co-owners Juan Carlos Cedillo and his wife, Dulce Margarita Morales, ran their farm with the help of their two daughters and volunteers.
“We could always use more hands,” says Morales, co-founder of Mercado de Colores, a farmers market in Little Village, and Colectiva Ukulima, a collective of farmers of color.
They also could use assistance with accounting and record-keeping, and they needed help this year with utility bills.
“We definitely felt the economy hit us hard this year,” Morales says.
But they didn’t raise prices.
“We’re not making enough money for us to become rich, but we’re not going to say we’re failing,” Morales says. “We are succeeding at providing for our community.”
‘COME HELL OR HIGH WATER’
Fueled by the COVID pandemic, Edwards’ organic produce business took off. It delivers to homes, restaurants, food cooperatives and larger CSAs.
His produce varies depending on the season and might include Swiss chard, kale, blueberries, bananas, oranges, organic honey, carrots and beets.
But his Smooth & Social Roots Cafe, which has an on-site garden and chicken coop, is still establishing itself. Confident there’s a market for it, Edwards is elevating his social media presence to get the word out.
At Yellow Banana, the owners realize they need to succeed where other grocers have failed.
Ensuring success means “constantly adapting and thinking about the operational side of things so that we can deliver affordable nutrition to working families, which is our mandate,” says Adewale-Sadik.
Competitor checks are conducted weekly to ensure bargain prices for staples, such as eggs, butter, milk and cooking oil. “We’ve made a commitment to our customers that come hell or high water, they can come to our stores to get the best price on those core items,” Nance says.
Yellow Banana also is thinking about starting a transportation service limited to certain days and locations.
And Ferguson says the Chicago Food Equity Council is looking at the big picture and not relying on a single store or solution to end long-standing inequity.
“When we go grocery shopping, we might stop and get coffee. We might go to the butcher. We might get a cupcake for a friend to celebrate their birthday,” she says. “We’re thinking about that entire food ecosystem and how businesses can support each other and people can have choices.”
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