West Side Story: The Caterer's Edition
When it comes to understanding the structure of community, Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best: “We must learn to live together as brothers, or perish together as fools.” To act and rise as a community means to recognize the excellence that exists within and find ways in which to push that as far as possible. West Side United is doing just that by providing small businesses and non-profits grants to help fund their ventures. Amazing Edibles was lucky enough to receive a $25,000 grant from WSU, partnered with J.P. Morgan Chase, Accion, and Northern Trust, at an awards ceremony on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
West Side United is a collaborative team of six different hospitals to bring more focus to Chicago’s west side communities and help them grow. It is an unnerving statistic that residents living in these communities have a life expectancy of 25 years less than those that live in neighborhoods such as the Gold Coast or the Loop. Since the 1968 Chicago riots, residents of the west side communities have had less access to resources such as nourishing foods, healthcare, and adequate shelter. West Side United’s initiative is to invest in the west side neighborhoods to help provide a thriving, more sustainable community, without pushing its long time members out with taxes and higher rent from gentrification.
As a proud west side based catering company, we’re extremely grateful and honored to have been chosen to be one of the 29 businesses awarded. Last year, we also were chosen to receive a similar grant, which helped us to purchase a new catering vehicle to ensure we can provide even more service for our clients, and also helped us to provide warm meals to a non-profit organization in the west side known as New Moms. New Moms focuses on helping young moms who are facing poverty and homelessness by providing both personal and job development tools necessary to help care for themselves and their children, while also enforcing them to change their lives for the better. Because of last year’s grant, we were able to deliver over 600 meals to them last year, valued at around $10,000.
For this year’s reception, our owner, Andrea Herrera, was asked to give a speech to reflect on how these grants have helped us and our fellow community grow. “As a minority and woman owned business that has made the west side of Chicago our home for over 25 years, the focus and attention on entrepreneurs as catalysts for growth and neighborhood development that West Side United is celebrating and supporting is welcome and quite simply amazing… We are excited to announce that this year, our plan is to sponsor 3 residents of the west side of Chicago into an internship program in 3 different parts of our company teaching real work job skills, paying a living wage, and ideally developing our next group of employees to foster the growth of these individuals and our company. We are proud and honored to be affiliated with West Side United and grateful for this opportunity to grow and partner with such a forward thinking program and organization.”
A HUGE thank you to West Side United, J.P. Morgan Chase, Accion, Northern Trust, our amazing team, and amazing clients for supporting us and giving us the chance to grow!