Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The Little Village Community Foundation in partnership with Food Hero serve the vibrant community in the Southwest side of Chicago. Both organizations serve as catalysts for economic equality, prosperity and advancement of businesses, families, and individuals that are underemployed, unemployed, low-income, immigrant, undocumented, and underserved.Food Hero's Food Business and Wellnes Incubator Program aims to impact and support early-stage food businesses and individuals from Little Village )zip code- 60623) and surrounding communities in the South and West sides of Chicago. Food Hero's Food Business and Wellness Incubator will support the local food ecosystem by providing the following equity-based programmatic and facilities goals:Culinary Entreprenuer Programs: Bilingual technical assistance, including 1-1 coaching, virtual training courses and workshops, peer learning, mentorship, and consultation"Food as Medicine" - nutrition education, meals, and food delivery to impact social determinants of healthFood Security: A healthy food grocery store, food rescue programs, which receives donations of grocery items and converts into meals and shared retailed spaceFacilities: Two shared commercial kitchens to be used as co-working space by program participants and smart fridges, which showcase food products from local entrepreneurs and provides access to foods in local food desertsThrough an understanding of the needs of Little Village and surrounding communities, Food Hero will develop a community asset initiative that delivers the following outcomes:Impact local economy by creating new culinary career and business pathways for new businesses, increased jobs, and wealth creationImpact health disparities through culturally appropriate medically tailred meals, nutrition education, and pilot programs such as preventive "Food as Medicine" wellness programImprove local food insecurity by maintaining a food store with locally sourced healthy produceThroughout the duraction of this project, the Little Village Community Foundation will serve as Food Hero's fiscal sponsor supporting their community programs and fundraising efforts.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
The Food Hero's Food Business and Wellness Incubator will support the local food ecosystem by providing the following programmatic and facilities goals:Culinary Entrepreneur Programs: Bilingual technical assistance, including 1:1 coaching, virtual training courses and workshops, cohort-based peer-learning, mentorship, and consultation.Food Equity: "Food as Medicine" - nutrition education, meals, and food delivery to impact social determinants of health.Food Secruity: A healthy food grocery store, food rescue programs, which recieves donations of grocery items and converts into meals and shared retail space.Facilities: Two shared commercial kitchens to be used as co-working space by program participants and smart fridges, which shoecase food products from local entrepreneurs and provides access to foods in local food deserts.
Project Methods
Our mission is to help individuals from low-income communitities in the South and West sides of Chicago build their culinary confidence by developing career paths in hospitality, starting a food business, and to provide solutions to impact the social detrminants of health.Core Strategies:Goal 1: Provide bilingual technical and programmatic assistance, including 1:1 coaching, virtual training courses and workshops, cohort-based peer learning, mentorships and consultation to individuals and small buinesses interested in culinary and food service career pathwaysIdentify and provide overall entrepreneurial support to small businesses in the culinary and food serviceIdentify and train individuals that are interested in culinary job opportunitiesCreate and deliver bilingual workshops in the following areas: access to capital, marketing, licensing, and other culinary topicsProvide cohort peer bilingual training coursesProvide 1-1 coaching and technical assistanceGoal 2: Create and provide "Food as Medicine" meals, nutritional education and to impact food secruity balanceCreate and provide personalized nutritional meals to aid in improving health outcomes over 8 week program in partnership with University of ChicagoProvide nutritional educationCreate partnership with delivry services UberEats and Grubhub to deliver medically tailored mealsMeasure impact of "Food as Medicine" program to see what are individual health performance on social determinants of healthGoal 3. Strengthen health food grocery store and shared retail spaceMaintain a grocery store that will erve as a testing platform for selling or showcasing locally sourced produce and local entrepreneurship talentPurchase staples and produce from local vendorsTrain staff on food safety and sanitation, labeling, and overall management of grocery storeGoal 4. Make two commericial kitchens available to small businesses and culinary start-upsOffer two shared, fully equipped kitchen spaces and spaces for 24 operationsGoal 5. Conduct ongoing evaluations of programs, meet all performance metrics and manage program dataSelect and establish a data management system to build and generate data reports to measure outcomes, areas for improvement, and areas to celebrateEvaluate each strategicgoal to ensure that performance metrics are met