{"id":61734,"date":"2025-03-12T01:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T09:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/civileats.com\/?p=61734"},"modified":"2025-04-02T09:35:36","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T17:35:36","slug":"in-chicago-an-environmental-organization-feeds-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/civileats.com\/2025\/03\/12\/in-chicago-an-environmental-organization-feeds-community\/","title":{"rendered":"In Chicago, an Environmental Organization Feeds a Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

A version of this article originally appeared in The Deep Dish, our members-only newsletter.\u00a0Become a member today<\/a>\u00a0and get the next issue directly in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

A towering, two-story arch, trimmed in barrel tiles with an all-caps marquee, makes it very clear where you are: \u201cBIENVENIDOS A LITTLE VILLAGE.\u201d The structure rises high above bustling 26th Street in Chicago\u2019s Little Village neighborhood, where independent restaurants, retails, and street vendors make it one of the highest-grossing commercial corridors in Chicago. This is the threshold of the Little Village neighborhood, home to many immigrants from Central America as well as the largest community of Mexican Americans in the Midwest.<\/p><\/div>

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At the base of the Little Village Arch<\/a>, a group of protesters gathered earlier this month.<\/a> Braced against the biting winter chill, they loudly decried the raids of immigrant communities ordered by the incoming Trump administration, which aimed to arrest and deport an estimated 2,000 immigrants<\/a> across this sanctuary city, and more nationwide. In this climate, members of this tight-knit community must rely on each other now more than ever.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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The entry to Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. (Photo credit: The City of Chicago, 2021)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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One of the strongest advocates for the neighborhood is the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO)<\/a>. For decades, the nonprofit has fought to protect Little Village\u2019s land, air, and the life in between. Its multifaceted, community-led food justice program includes hot meal dropoffs, backyard garden startups, and a new farm, just a few blocks from the arch, where fresh produce can be picked up for free. LVEJO is now also a landmark for Little Village.<\/p>\n

Last December, LVEJO received the national Food Sovereignty Prize<\/a>, awarded for \u201cgrassroots, agroecological solutions from the people most harmed by the injustices of the global food system,\u201d according to a press release<\/a> from the U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance. \u201cI felt so glad that the Food Sovereignty Prize committee really got what the team was trying to do here,\u201d says LVEJO\u2019s deputy director, Juliana Pino. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about simply growing food. It’s really about committing to the land, defending and protecting each other in the land, and showing up for a community in ways that are really rooted.\u201d<\/p>\n

LVEJO\u2019s role in the local food system was years in the making, and it began with environmental activism. Pino recalls how, in 1994, a group of parents forced their local elementary school to restrategize renovation plans after some children suddenly became ill, likely from toxins released during the renovation process. That foundational group of parents would soon expand to include other community leaders and go on to tackle environmental injustices neighborhood-wide as Little Village Environmental Justice Organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just about simply growing food. It’s really about committing to the land, defending and protecting each other in the land, and showing up for a community in ways that are really rooted.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Over its 30 years, LVEJO has shuttered two local coal power plants as well as an asphalt roofing manufacturer, Celotex, which was deemed a Superfund site<\/a> by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and took the better part of a decade to remediate; now it is a 21-acre neighborhood park.<\/p>\n

Viviana \u201cVivi\u201d Moreno grew up near the neighborhood, hearing these stories. \u201cI knew people whose family members were affected by the coal power plants,\u201d she says. In college, while elbow-deep in a detailed case study about LVEJO in her environmental health class, she fully connected the dots, and began to see \u201cthe legacy that polluting industries have in communities of color and immigrant communities of color.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreno joined LVEJO as a volunteer more than a decade ago, and has evolved alongside the organization. Now LVEJO\u2019s senior food justice organizer, she helps facilitate a multigenerational network of neighbors who offer essential insight on traditional farming practices and foodways. Pino sees the work as a multitiered form of sustenance: \u201cA number of those folks . . . had a really hard time sustaining employment due to racism and disrespect for their skills and undervaluing the knowledge that they have. And on top of that, they were looking for ways to sustain the ancestral practices that they had back from their origin countries, as well as feed their families.\u201d Such cultural knowledge risks being lost if it isn\u2019t transferred to the next generation.<\/p>\n

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Viviana Moreno is Little Village Environmental Justice Organization’s senior food justice organizer. (Photo credit: Little Village Environmental Justice Organization)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

LVEJO\u2019s multi-pronged food justice program is offered free of cost and is communicated primarily through word of mouth. Eight food justice staff members and 50 to 80 volunteers run the program, which includes the pandemic-born Farm Food Familias<\/a> project, created in collaboration with Getting Grown Collective<\/a>. The project has served more than 50,000 meals so far, using produce donated by and purchased from local urban farms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we noticed with this mutual aid program is that it wasn\u2019t just COVID, it was an economic issue,\u201d says Moreno. \u201cA lot of folks lost their jobs because of either contracting long COVID or losing family members, and were having a hard time getting back to an economic space where they could provide for their families. So, that\u2019s where some of the meals came in and they were really beautiful and healing.\u201d Funding for Farm Food Familias and LVEJO’s other food initiatives, as well as for the organization as a whole, comes largely from private foundations that have supported LVEJO for years, as well as individual donors.<\/p>\n

Food justice staff member Taryn Randle organizes Backyard Gardens Little Village, a program that supplies residents with education and materials\u2014including plants and garden beds\u2014to activate their own gardens. About 20 homes participate so far. Meanwhile, Moreno is helping to develop a blossoming 1.3-acre greenspace, La Villita Park<\/a>, which opened in 2014 on a portion of the converted Celotex site.<\/p>\n

Semillas de Justicia (Seeds of Justice)<\/a>, a half-acre community garden and farm, sits just outside the park. A series of painted vignettes adorn the garden\u2019s fence: people gardening together, whimsical hearts, the landmark arch, and messages affirming the neighborhood\u2019s existence: \u201cDefiende La Villita!\u201d and \u201cLet us breathe!\u201d<\/p>\n

During the growing season, Semillas\u2019 garden beds are fully occupied by 70 households. The adjoining vegetable farm hosts a weekly free farmers\u2019 market, offering produce freshly harvested from the site. LVEJO collaborates with community members in deciding what to grow, to ensure that the land offers agency to the people of the neighborhood while fortifying their connection to culture and heritage.<\/p>\n

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Yasmin Ruiz, food justice co-organizer at Chicago\u2019s Little Village Environmental Justice Organization. The organization won the national Food Sovereignty Prize in December. (Photo credit: Little Village Environmental Justice Organization)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

This includes several varieties of tomatoes, corn, beans, pumpkin, medicinal herbs, and edible flowers such as marigolds, a key element of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations in the fall. Last year, between the community garden and the farm, LVEJO collectively harvested and distributed nearly 16,000 pounds of produce and about 1,000 fresh eggs during a time when the price of eggs and other groceries had spiked.<\/p>\n

LVEJO\u2019s farm manager, Nateo Carre\u00f1o, says it isn\u2019t uncommon for elders to stroll by during the growing season and offer a hand. Every interaction is a chance to pass down ancestral knowledge, and sometimes, a pat on the back. Carre\u00f1o recalls, \u201cA se\u00f1ora just [told] us, \u2018I walked to the park to tell you guys that your potatoes taste like they have butter in them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Both of Carre\u00f1o\u2019s grandfathers were farmers, and Carre\u00f1o sees the soil as a wonderland of living, breathing organisms that can heal itself<\/a> over time if given the proper support. Years after being reclaimed and cared for by LVEJO, the soil here not only produces bountiful harvests, but also teems with beneficial bacteria like Mycobacterium vaccae<\/i><\/a>, which get absorbed through the skin and trigger serotonin, the \u201chappy hormone,\u201d in the brain. \u201cI love soil, that\u2019s my jam,\u201d says Carre\u00f1o. \u201cThere’s just something in you that wakes up when you start working with plants and start working with soil.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, in the stillness of the winter, the land sleeps. Meanwhile, its caretakers keep planning. When the new season begins, LVEJO will continue to sow its mighty vision for Little Village.<\/p>\n

Food Mutual Aid Stories<\/div>
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Illustration by Nhatt Nichols<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n