Executive Summary
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) and Delta Institute will create a new community hub to provide Little Village and Southwest Chicago with food equity and economic development opportunities. They will transform a vacant, former firehouse at 2358 S. Whipple to 1) Offer 150 food-cart entrepreneurs professional-grade equipment to prepare food for sale; 2) Establish a worker-led cooperative to manage the kitchen that also will serve as a community kitchen in off-use hours; 3) Serve as the heart of a sustainable food network, with entrepreneurs purchasing organic produce from the LVEJO Urban Farm and sending produce waste to the planned LVEJO commercial composting site; 4) Establish an open-access venue for consistent programming for LVEJO and local advocates; and 5) Increase economic sustainability in the community and uplift residents' lives through an estimated $8 million in food cart revenues.
Charity, fund, non-governmental organization, religious institution, school, or other entity
Organizations may provide budget and employee data based on this proposal or the organization as a whole. For more information on this proposal or organization, please email us.
Accomplishments
To ensure ongoing transparency and inclusion, LVEJO and Delta Institute continued canvassing the community to hone, refine, and confirm our proposed project. Those efforts led in part to LVEJO undertaking an intensive, two-month strategic planning process in early 2021. Delta Institute is making similar efforts to ensure complete inclusion and authenticity in all projects and programming. We continue our outreach and engagement of potential funding partners while prioritizing our COVID-19 and racial equity responses (please see subsequent sections).
