Breakthrough - Fresh Pantry
Breakthrough is a non-profit organization in Chicago partnering with those affected by poverty to build connections and develop life skills. Their vision is to create a more safe, stable, and engaged East Garfield Park where success is the norm and families have better opportunities to prosper.
In early June 2019, our team at Relish Works had the opportunity to volunteer at Breakthrough’s Fresh Market - a client-choice food pantry providing fresh groceries, some canned items, and various personal supplies to families in Chicago’s East Garfield Park area.
East Garfield Park is a 130 year-old historic west-side neighborhood named for the 185-acre Garfield Park with landmarks such as the Garfield Park Conservatory, beautiful Greystone homes and a mosaic-clad elevated station on the CTA Green Line. The entrance of Breakthrough's Freshmarket is situated next to an unused lot that could potentially be turned into a community garden.
We arrived on a warm and sunny day that finally felt like summer in Chicago. Our team was greeted by Wendy, the Freshmarket coordinator, who explained how the pantry works. The majority of the food offered at the market comes from the Greater Chicago Food Depository, with 2% of the food coming from farmers.
Breakthrough’s Freshmarket is set up to model a grocery store; what the market refers to as a ‘client choice food pantry.’ This model is not only empowering, but also gives shoppers a much needed level of choice. Families come one Saturday per month to shop for groceries. The market is different from other food pantries in that they always supply fresh product, including fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, bread, eggs and milk.
There is a food cooking station where families are offered samples, snacks and cooking demonstrations while they wait to go through the store to pick out their groceries. Cooking demonstrations at the market are aimed at introducing members to products that they may not be as culturally familiar with in order to encourage a more diverse and nutritious pallet and to maximize their cooking possibilities.
The Relish team spent our time sorting produce, arranging cans, emptying boxes and scanning through expiration dates. During the course of our time there, we met their oldest volunteer who is 93 years old and has been helping with the pantry since its opening.
“Would we eat that?” is what we asked ourselves over and over again, while sifting through the boxes.
As our team worked at the facility, it became more and more clear that Freshmarket is not just a pantry, but a real community. Most of the volunteers are senior citizens living in the area who not only want to give back and support their fellow neighbors in the East Garfield Park area, but also use the opportunity each month stocking the pantry to socialize and mingle with their peers.
A challenge for our team was adjusting to the social aspect of the regular volunteers work culture. While our team walked in with the purpose of being hyper efficient and quick with our tasks, the more regular volunteers had a sense of ease to their work and were happy to spend more time 'getting it done' in order to catch up with their peers.
There was a real sense of fun, happiness, and laughter throughout the day, followed by a feeling of pride when you saw the shelves overflowing with fresh options for the customers who would be arriving the next morning to pick out their groceries.
OUR TAKEAWAYS
“By just stocking shelves, we were not being the most helpful.”
-Nicole
“A large part of the culture is about engaging in conversation with each other. ”
-Sahana