Category: Food access

Good Food Festival

Pasta Power: Sarah Grueneberg’s Golden On Good Food Festival Chef Stage

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Sarah Grueneberg, award-winning chef-owner of Chicago’s award-winning Monteverde restaurant, will receive FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Chef of the Year Award — and conduct a cooking demo — at the 2018 Good Food Festival, part of our 14th Annual Good Food EXPO. And as if Sarah were not enough reason to make your way to the UIC Forum on Saturday, March 24, wait until you see the rest of the lineup for our popular Chefs at Play stage. Mind blown.

Wholesome Wave

Remembrance: Gus Schumacher, Food & Farming Hero, Wholesome Wave Co-Founder

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Gus Schumacher was a leader in the Good Food movement who died Sept. 24 at age 77. He made his greatest mark as a pioneering innovator in efforts to improve access to healthy local food for lower-income and older Americans — as a public official and as a co-founder of Wholesome Wave, a Connecticut-based non-profit best known for its program to double the dollar amount of healthy food that individuals can purchase using federal food assistance benefits. Wholesome Wave CEO Michel Nischan wrote the remembrance highlighting Gus Schumacher’s contributions that is published here.

Pilot Light Chefs Stirring Up More Food Education On Chicago’s South Side

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Pilot Light is the chef-driven program that helps Chicago Public Schools integrate food and nutrition education into their students’ overall curriculum. And the nonprofit organization is prepping for its biggest expansion yet, adding eight schools to its lineup for a total of 14 around the city of Chicago.

Chef-Driven Pilot Light: Food Education For All Seasons

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Pilot Light is a nonprofit organization founded by some of Chicago’s top Good Food chefs to bring food education to students in Chicago Public Schools. And even though school’s out for the summer, Pilot Light is doing events around town to spread the word about its important social mission.

The Kitchen Community: Growing Better Lives, One Garden At A Time

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The first thing you notice if you visit a school with a Learning Garden from The Kitchen Community non-profit organization is … joy. The chance to get their instruction outdoors instead of in the classroom — learning to put seeds in soil, nurture the plants, and then harvest the food they have grown — is something the children really seem to relish. Yet it may take a few years, at least for the little ones, to realize what serious purposes are behind this fun school time.

Academy for Global Citizenship

Chefs Playground to Benefit Academy for Global Citizenship’s Innovation in Education

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Imagine a school teaching Chicago children from kindergarten through 12th grade on a seven-acre campus — three of those acres devoted to urban agriculture — designed by famed architect Jeanne Gang’s Studio Gang. Imagine this school incorporating local citizenship, sustainability, Good Food, social justice and other values into its curriculum… serving organic, locally sourced, made-from-scratch food in its cafeteria… and producing more energy than it uses. Then imagine this school is not in an upscale Chicago neighborhood or tony suburb, but rather on the industrial, mostly Hispanic, mostly low-income Southwest Side. That is the vision for the expansion of the Academy for Global Citizenship — for which the charter school’s foundation will raise money at its 5th Annual Chefs Playground on June 9 at the Art Institute of Chicago.

FamilyFarmed At Play

FamilyFarmed At Play: Money Does Grow In School Gardens For The Kitchen Community

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

It is alway a joyous day when FamilyFarmed gets to visit a school garden that gives children the tools to learn how to grow food and other plants. The Kitchen Community nonprofit installed a new garden at Wendell Smith Elementary on Chicago’s far South Side May 30, and the enthusiasm of the children who helped in the planting was infectious. But the trip was even more rewarding, because a $2 million donation to The Kitchen Community from Wells Fargo Bank was announced at a ceremony at the end of the installation

FamilyFarmed at Play

FamilyFarmed At Play: Growing Home’s Social Mission Is Good Food and Good Jobs

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Visiting Growing Home’s urban farm would be a great field trip for FamilyFarmed wherever it was located. But Growing Home’s location, at 5814 S. Wood Street, and the social mission that it entails is what makes this nonprofit organization truly amazing: It is in the heart of West Englewood, a neighborhood of about 35,000 residents — nearly all African American — that has suffered from decades of job and population loss, economic decline and high crime rates.

Chef Paul Kahan’s Enduring Bonds To His One Off Hospitality Family: A Frontera 30 Story

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Chefs Erling Wu-Bower of Chicago’s Nico Osteria and Cosmo Goss of The Publican are two of the biggest young stars on the city’s and nation’s restaurant scene. So when they went to their boss at the hugely successful One Off Hospitality Group — James Beard Award winning chef Paul Kahan — a few months ago to tell him that they planned to open their own restaurant, Paul says, “Man, my brain exploded.” But Paul himself had benefited from the nurturing and encouragement of the chefs from whom he learned, such as Rick Bayless, and he and his business partners are helping Erling and Cosmo plan and develop their restaurant. All three chefs will participate on Sunday in the Frontera 30th Anniversary Celebration fundraiser at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Frontera 30

Chef Matthias Merges’ Success Built On Base of Social Conscience: A Frontera 30 Story

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Matthias Merges is a leader in Chicago’s culinary community. Matthias also, from very early on, has been deeply committed to making Chicago and its communities better. So it’s not surprising that Chef Rick Bayless, was eager to have Matthias participate in the Frontera 30th Anniversary Celebration, a joint fundraiser for his Frontera Farmer Foundation and FamilyFarmed, which will be held at The Art Institute of Chicago on Sunday, April 30.

Westside Bee Boyz

Westside Bee Boyz: Sweet Community — And Personal — Revival in Chicago

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

We often highlight the potential for Good Food businesses to revitalize economically challenged communities and improve the lives of those who live there. Few businesses combine both of those elements in one person as much as Chicago’s Westside Bee Boyz. Founder Thad Smith’s beekeeping and honey company is still quite small, but he has big dreams for the company. He views it as a platform for community and young entrepreneur development in North Lawndale and other troubled communities in Chicago.

Top 5 Reasons to Attend Saturday’s Good Food Festival

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The three pillars of the Good Food movement are a healthier, a more environmentally sustainable, and more economically dynamic food system that puts Good Food on Every Table. This year’s Festival will put a special accent on that first pillar — Good Food’s massive contribution to building a society with healthier, happier people and lower health care costs — with panels on Good Food is Good Medicine and Food and Mood.

Windy City Harvest: Growing Good Food and Good Food Jobs

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Windy City Harvest operates four training programs on 13 farm sites that, according to Director of Operations Kelly Larsen, “all aim to create a pathway of opportunity within local food” for urban farmers, including youths from economically challenging circumstances. Larsen will share her experiences and expertise in growing Good Food and Good Food jobs in urban communities tomorrow (Thursday, March 16) as a panelist at FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference at Chicago’s UIC Forum.

Weekly Link Roundup – November 4

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The best Good Food news we’ve read this week:    Midwest Good Food Turning Detroit’s Abandoned Homes Into Greenhouses, The Atlantic Milwaukee County To Be Home To Largest Urban Organic Fruit Orchard In US, Wisconsin Public Radio National Good Food Conversation Why Washington’s First Lady is Growing Her Own Grains, Civil Eat A Sustainable Food Read more about Weekly Link Roundup – November 4[…]

Food Access for Kids, Families Gets $500,000 Boost in Food to Market Challenge

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

“Team Leverage,” a collaboration of three major Good Food entities in the Chicago region, faced serious competition from four other strong finalists in the Food to Market Challenge. The team won the $500,000 award because of a strong social purpose — bringing healthy, nutritious, affordable food to more school children and their families — plus a distribution model with strong potential to be expanded in Chicago and replicated elsewhere.

Weekly Link Roundup – September 30

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The best Good Food news we’ve read this week:    Midwest Good Food Rooftop wheat fields elevate Chicago’s urban farming scene to exciting new heights, Inhabitat In Englewood, Whole Foods opens to cheers, high hopes, Chicago Tribune Here Are 14 Local Products At The New Englewood Whole Foods, DNAInfo Will selling to ConAgra affect Bayless’ Read more about Weekly Link Roundup – September 30[…]

New Whole Foods Store on Chicago’s South Side Spurs Hope for Rebirth

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There was an air of promise that surrounded Wednesday morning’s grand opening of the Whole Foods Market store in the troubled Englewood neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.

Weekly Link Roundup – September 16

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The best Good Food news we’ve read this week:    FamilyFarmed in the News Kendall College Launches a Business Incubator for Food Entrepreneurs, ChicagoInno Midwest Good Food Can Whole Foods Lift Up New Englewood Plaza? Business Owners Have Faith, DNAInfo Midwest Farmers Brew Up Hops For Local Craft Beer, Earth Eats New Fulton Market Harvest Read more about Weekly Link Roundup – September 16[…]

Green City BBQ Is A Foodie Feast With A Social Mission

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Chicago’s Green City Market is known as one of the nation’s premier farmers market. The Market’s big annual public celebration is its Chef BBQ, which is coming up next week on Thursday, July 21. The event is kind of a foodie fantasy camp, but there is also an important social mission. Green City Market executive director Melissa Flynn discusses in the latest installment of our “Farm to Table: Keeping It Real” series.

Urban Farm to Table is Grower Jen Rosenthal’s Tomato Jam

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Urban agriculture in on the rise, in many cases providing jobs, opportunities and access to Good Food for residents of underserved communities. But the farm Jen Rosenthal manages on Chicago’s South Side has particular social significance: It is on a site once occupied by apartment towers of The Robert Taylor Homes, which had grown so troubled-plagued that its residents were relocated and the buildings torn down.