Co-op Innovation Awards
Congratulations to Chi Fresh Kitchen, Bronx Future, and The Guild for receiving the 2020 Co-op Innovation Award.
ChiFresh Kitchen
ChiFresh Kitchen is being awarded $50,000 to expand its commercial kitchen, owned and determined by formerly incarcerated Chicagoans, primarily Black women. ChiFresh pushed forward its intended launch in response to the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on Chicagoans of color and residents with low incomes.
ChiFresh is now delivering prepared meals that are freshly cooked, healthy, delicious, and rooted in the culture and traditions of the people being served. Many of the members lost jobs because of COVID so launching the co-op provided much needed income in addition to getting food out to the community. They are working closely with local government and anchor institutions to become the go-to prepared meal vendor for anchor institutions implementing good food purchasing policies. ChiFresh hopes to influence the narrative around worker cooperatives and their impact on the lives of the most marginalized community members.
Bronx Future
The Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative (BCDI) is being awarded $25,000 to bring worker ownership to an entirely new audience of minority business owners and workers through an industry focused strategy. The grant will support the creation of a worker-owned integrated pest management (IPM) co-op that provides living wages and the opportunity to scale through demand from institutional purchasers.
BCDI is a community-led economic development organization focused on building an equitable, democratic economy that creates shared wealth and ownership for people of color with low incomes. They are an inclusive organization that provides materials, training, and workshops in several different languages. A key objective for the organization is localizing procurement to Bronx-based minority/women-owned businesses and worker-owned cooperatives by leveraging stakeholder relationships.
The Guild
The Guild in Atlanta is being awarded $25,000 to support its mission of building community wealth through real estate, entrepreneurship programs, and access to capital, creating equitable and sustainable communities by addressing the root causes of economic inequality.
The grant will support the Guild’s “whole systems” approach, allowing the Guild to continue providing technical assistance to Black and Brown enterprises through its Community Wealth Building Accelerator; launch its Integrated Capital Fund that will coordinate and deploy different types of capital and investments to entrepreneurs of color; and launch the Groundcover Community Investment Trust to introduce an alternative real estate development model to the Atlanta community.
