West Garfield Park, a Predominantly Black Community has lost its last two Grocery Stores leaving Residents with No Access to Fresh Foods

CHICAGO, IL, UNITED STATES, February 28, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The COVID-19 African American Relief Fund, Cook County Black Chamber of Commerce, and its CEO and Founder, Siri Hibbler, today, announces its nationwide emergency fundraising efforts to raise funds to provide continual Fresh Groceries to the West Garfield Park community in Chicago. A native of Garfield Park, this task is very near and dear to Mrs. Hibbler, who has been an advocate for improving the Garfield Park community and lives of its residents since returning to her home community in 2016. Mrs. Hibbler and her team of volunteers and staff will be reaching out to many businesses in their network across the country for support and donations. The West Garfield Park community has seen both of their grocery stores close starting last October 2021 when Aldi closed and more recently, the local Sav-a-lot grocery store was shut down by health inspectors. These simultaneous closings have left the community and the fund’s targeted group that includes senior citizens and families with children with no place to shop for fresh food.

“The COVID-19 African American Relief Fund is continuing to prioritize providing relief and support to our targeted groups. We will begin taking grocery lists from residents in the Garfield Park area starting March 1st. We are hoping to raise enough funds to not only continually provide groceries for the targeted residents, but also to build out a community owned and operated grocery store. No community should be without access to fresh groceries. Its hard to look at how far the community has diminished over decades. It is nothing like when I grew up here where there were many black-owned grocery stores in the area”, said Siri Hibbler.

The COVID-19 African American Relief Fund, received $200,000 in donations when it launched in 2020 to help provide relief to black businesses, residents and front-line workers who were seriously impacted by the pandemic. “We were not blessed to receive part of the $6.9M from the Oprah Winfrey Foundation as some other organizations received in Chicago, however, despite this, we are so very blessed and grateful for the donors who gave to the fund that allowed us to save many black businesses in Illinois and across the country from closing during the pandemic as they were awarded from $1500 to $10,000 via the grant program that we established, and approximately 1,000 families received personalized fresh groceries and deliveries”, said Mrs. Hibbler.

“The COVID-19 African American Relief Fund was launched by the Cook County Black Chamber. Since 2019, the Cook County Black Chamber of Commerce has provided business development support to approximately, 2,000 businesses. The business support includes business plan development, business advising and coaching, technical assistance, wealth and succession planning, business workshops, entrepreneur training and access to capital. There are currently, approximately, 17,000 residents in the West Garfield Park community that have been negatively impacted by the store closings and the COVID pandemic. The funds received by the COVID-19 African American Relief Funds are greatly needed to help feed families and the elderly in the community who cannot walk from their homes to a local grocery store. In addition, donations to the Relief Fund will continue to allow the fund to help black-owned businesses survive and thrive during and after the pandemic. We are honored to be part of this process to bring groceries to the West Garfield Park residents and continual funding opportunities to the black businesses”, said, Siri Hibbler.

The COVID-19 African American Relief Fund and the staff of the Cook County Black Chamber will take the grocery lists of targeted residents, shop for them and hand deliver their groceries. The fund is calling on all who care about feeding families and our senior citizens to donate to the fund. “Our immediate goal is to raise $100,000 for groceries with a long-term goal of raising $35M to build out a community owned and operated Grocery store in West Garfield Park. It doesn’t matter if you donate $5 or $5M, your donation is very much appreciated, and the funds go directly to achieving the mission of

Siri Hibbler
COVID-19 African American Relief Fund
+1 312.794.7765
siri.hibbler@cookcountyblackchamber.com
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