Mayor Brandon Johnson on Tuesday celebrated a network of Black and Latino-owned Chicago businesses that he said has fed more than 10,000 migrants with the help of $17.6 million in mostly state funding.
Touring BJ’s Market and Bakery on the Far South Side, the mayor took the opportunity to highlight the meal service amid growing budgetary concerns — including from Black communities — over his costly mission to care for the asylum-seekers. The diner is one of 17 small businesses working under city contractor, Greater Chicago Food Depository, to provide food throughout the city’s migrant shelters, according to a news release from the mayor’s office.
“I want to thank the Greater Chicago Food Depository for its service to our city during this critical time,” Johnson said in a statement. “I also want to recognize BJ’s Market and Bakery for being an anchor of the South Side, and for being a part of a number of community-based organizations stepping up to meet this moment by providing delicious and nutritious food to thousands of our new neighbors.”
The restaurants and caterers who were part of the initiative served 18,000 hot meals per day across 21 sites by the end of last year, the mayor’s office said. They were funded by $14.5 million from the state of Illinois plus another $3 million in private donations collected by the Food Depository, which first tested such a model in early 2023 to feed Chicagoans who were enrolled in “opportunity youth programs” on the West Side.
“We believe food is a basic human right and our mission is to end hunger,” Kate Maehr, CEO of the Food Depository, said in a statement. “Our work to feed new arrivals gave us the opportunity to meet an urgent demand while creating economic impact and living wage jobs. We did this by investing directly in neighborhood-based Chicago restaurants and caterers.”
The Food Depository most recently received an infusion of public dollars in early December, after Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced the state would chip in $2 million, with the food bank matching that amount via philanthropy. Pritzker’s team attributed the need for additional food funding to unspecified delays in the city’s bidding process.
The mayor’s news release on Tuesday said BJ’s Market, which is Black-owned, saw a 100% increase in revenue and was able to hire four additional employees after joining the Food Depository’s efforts and receiving financial support to feed migrants.
Other businesses who joined the $17.6 million apparatus include: Blueprint Group, Catering Out the Box, Rome’s Joy Catering, Carnitas Uruapan, Food Hero, the Chi-Care food collective, Chi-Fresh, Chinese American Service League, Garifuna Flava, Irazu, Jarabe, La Merced, Los Comales, Nellie’s, Atzimba Catering and Nuevo Leon.