Sales of our Quarantine Coffee have supported the Greater Chicago Food Depository since May 2020, but for the first time since we started working together, we had a chance to help with our own hands.
A team from Connect — employees, partners and family — spent an afternoon volunteering during our Christmas holiday at the Food Depository, which operates as the city’s food bank by supplying more than 700 Cook County food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters.
We worked as part of a group that repackaged more than 13,000 pounds of apples from wholesale boxes to more practical quantities for individuals and families. After food like this is repacked at the Food Depository, it gets distributed to pantries like the recently opened Free-N-Deed Market in Dolton, where guests pick out their own groceries from aisles of fresh produce, meat, dry goods and other staples.
Phricette Powell is one of the Free-N-Deed’s guests and says the market helps her keep enough food on the table.
“God is good,” she says. “I’m just thankful.”
The Food Depository has seen record demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s estimated that more than 600,000 people in Cook County are living in food insecurity.
In the face of such need, we’re proud to continue to support the GCFD and such a worthy cause. Through the end of 2021, sales of Connect coffee have provided 24,000 meals — distributed through the Food Depository network— to those in need.
Of course, none of this would be possible customers purchasing our coffee. So thank you to YOU for helping us empower communities through coffee.
You can support the Food Depository by purchasing either of our Ethiopian Guji or Congo Umoji coffees. For each pound of these two coffees we sell, three meals are provided to the Food Depository.
