Harnessing the energy around Food is Medicine, Dion’s Chicago Dream is delivering fresh, medically tailored food boxes to help eaters treat diet-related illnesses and improve nutrition security.
The nonprofit serves 2,000 patients per week across over 160 zip codes, delivering medically tailored food boxes at no cost. The recipients might be living with hypertension, diabetes, or high cholesterol, and the foods distributed are curated to help them manage their condition.
Food is Medicine is an opportunity to “get fresh food to the people who need it most,” Dion Dawson, the Founder and “Chief Dreamer,” at Dion’s Chicago Dream, tells Food Tank. But with the sector valued at around US$25 billion, he also believes it’s a market opportunity.
“How do we continue to use this market to stabilize the organizations and businesses who have committed themselves to serving healthier recipients…all around the country?” Dawson asks. Part of the answer, be believes, lies showing those in power that programs like his are successful. There are “amazing results,” he says, “and we have to continue to show that it’s working.”
If medically tailored meals or produce prescription programs can expand, Dawson sees the potential for a domino effect. “If we give people more access to healthier food, we can start that process of changing behaviors,” he tells Food Tank. “But you can’t change behaviors without the food.”
In addition to their Food is Medicine work, Dion’s Chicago Dream offers grocery delivery to food insecure neighbors around Chicago—dropped off directly at recipients’ homes or put in secure lockers in participating stores called Dream Vaults. They also stock a community fridge in the neighborhood of Englewood with fresh fruits, vegetables, and water.
Dawson is aware that his organization’s work will only become more urgent in the face of federal funding cuts as eaters lose vital nutrition assistance benefits and food banks and pantries struggle to secure the resources needed to serve their communities.
“I cannot undersell how different things are going to look in the next couple of years,” Dawson tells Food Tank. He says that there is an increasing need for organizations to become creative in developing solutions that can fill the gaps.
“It’s on us,” Dawson says. “We have to make sure that we’re digging deep because we can feel the impact but we have to keep that hope and that optimism because that makes it a little bit easier to wake up every day and figure out how we can best serve the people.”
Listen to the full conversation with Dion Dawson on “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” to hear more about how Dawson’s own experiences with hunger and homelessness has shaped his work, why Dion’s Chicago Dream refuses to rely on volunteers, and how organizations can continue to nourish people in times of political upheaval.
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Photo courtesy of Dion’s Chicago Dream
