Americans facing food insecurity experienced a one-two punch during the past few months. First, pandemic-era emergency food assistance was cut this spring, leaving households with anywhere from $95 to $250 less a month to feed their families. Now the debt-ceiling deal passed by Congress and signed by President Biden last week includes expanded work requirements for people receiving food assistance, potentially making it harder for families to put enough food on the table.
In response, food banks and other food charities have been using terms like “hunger crisis” and “hunger cliff” in their fundraising materials and social-media posts to solicit donations. Many ask variations on this question: “How will we feed everyone who comes to our food pantry for help?”
That’s the wrong question.
The question to ask — and answer — is this: How do we make sure everybody in the country can always count on getting the healthy food they need to thrive?
I’m a Black American who grew up in a Chicago family that was frequently homeless. It was normal for us to have no idea where our next meal was coming from. I served in the Navy, came home, and was homeless and food insecure once again. I know what it’s like to hurry to the food pantry before it closes, only to find mostly empty shelves and unappetizing food.
I know from experience that people who qualify for what we used to call food stamps are always in danger. It’s always bad. The latest federal cuts in food assistance are just one more depressing, dehumanizing step downward.
Nobody should have to live like that. Nobody should have to worry about one of life’s most basic necessities in America in the 21st century. Yet nearly one in four adults lives in food-insecure households, uncertain where their next meal will come from.
Food charities need to take a different approach to ensure people are no longer dependent on the next congressional vote to feed their families. My organization, Dion’s Chicago Dream, has a solution that we believe can help change the face of food assistance in this country.
Our formula is simple: We deliver boxes of fresh, quality produce to households in need every week, free of cost. Delivery is essential because many of our recipients don’t have a safe or reliable way to get to a food bank or a decent grocery store. They rely on our deliveries to meet their nutritional needs. That’s why nothing interrupts our regular delivery schedule — not even Chicago’s infamous snowstorms.
Each household on our list is guaranteed at least one full year of free weekly deliveries. Consistent, reliable access to high-quality food is at the heart of what we do. Unlike most food banks, which tend to offer a lot of processed food donated by companies when it’s about to expire, we buy top-quality fruits and vegetables from a premium wholesale grocer called J.A.B. Produce. No wilting lettuce or rotten, spotted apples for our recipients. No imperfect or discarded food, ever.
We see building trusting relationships as essential. We don’t rely on a revolving cast of volunteers. Instead, our recipients see Dream Team employees making deliveries week in and week out — and earning at least $20 an hour for their efforts. In addition to interacting with residents on delivery days, we call each household on our list every 15 days to see if we’re meeting expectations. Those calls show satisfaction rates at consistently more than 9.8 on a 10-point scale.
These calls also allow us to update delivery instructions and adjust our approach in response to recipients’ feedback. For example, our boxes used to include what we thought were helpful flyers on health topics and community resources. But a survey showed 70 percent of residents didn’t like opening a box expecting fresh food and seeing a bunch of pamphlets on top. Almost a third likened the experience to intrusive pop-up ads.
So we stopped adding flyers to the deliveries. Now we put a QR code on each box that includes links to recipes approved by the American Diabetes Association — and don’t clutter up kitchens.
We are small. We serve 800 households averaging five residents each week. But we believe any community can use our formula: stabilize quality and access to food, focus on getting food directly to recipients instead of making them come to you, and gather ongoing feedback so you can evolve as their needs change. In two years, this approach has allowed us to go from a standing start to delivering 30,000 pounds of fresh produce each month while serving thousands of residents in 26 Chicago neighborhoods every week.
We started in 2020 as a $20,000 operation that relied on social media and word of mouth. Word spread and grant makers began to hear about us during the pandemic. By 2021, we’d grown into a $300,000 operation and topped $1.4 million last year. We’ve met with politicians, including former President Barack Obama, and have found supporters in many corners of the city, such as the hip-hop community and the Chicago Bulls.
Rejecting Traditional Approaches
Back when we were trying to get Dion’s Chicago Dream started, I was told that a new nonprofit that wants to feed people typically contracts with bigger nonprofits that will keep a food pantry supplied for a price. The measure of success under this approach is the number of pounds of food moved — not the quality of the food or consistent access for residents. Food companies benefit from this model because they can donate unsold food or food that is about to expire and write it off on their taxes. Who, after all, can argue with putting food to use instead of letting it go to waste?
We rejected this traditional food-bank model because it meant our recipients would never know what kind of food would be on the menu or when it might be available. Instead of providing a reliable service, we’d be forced to offer a fluctuating supply of unpredictable foods of varying quality to residents whose lives are often already chaotic.
Illinois’s traditional food pantries and food banks, and the nonprofit networks that distribute food to them, don’t include many leaders who look like me and who have experienced food insecurity firsthand. We are more likely to see ourselves reflected in the fundraising content than in the boardroom. This reality reinforces a system that has never worked effectively for those it aims to help.
In the Chicago area alone, hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and food are donated, granted, deducted, or spent on food charity every year. But there’s no guarantee that this expensive network can consistently put high-quality, nutritious food in the hands of people who need it.
Food-focused nonprofits need to turn away from business as usual and listen to what those being served say they need. That requires building real connections with recipients and offering consistent access to top-quality food that people can depend on. It means prioritizing the needs of our neighbors who deserve to always know where their next healthy meal is coming from — and focusing less on the ups and downs of federal assistance.