Grocery Brigade Provides Healthy Food to Fight Life-Altering Diseases

Once a month on a Saturday morning, the basement of the Flossmoor Community Church is alive with activity.

Rows and rows of grocery bags are organized and sit under signs indicating where they are to be delivered. Volunteers pack bags with fresh produce and frozen goods. Other volunteers wheel wagons full of grocery packages to cars awaiting outside. The groceries will be delivered to families across the area who are facing some of the most difficult challenges of their life.

In the middle of the room giving direction to this “grocery brigade” as some call it, is Ann Jackson, the founder of the Center for Food Equity in Medicine.

The Center for Food Equity in Medicine, which is based in the basement of the Flossmoor Community Church, provides healthy food and other services for people across the south suburbs and Chicago who have been diagnosed with life-altering health conditions such as cancer. The non-profit organization, which was founded by Jackson in 2020 has served more than 8,000 people and almost 2,000 households. The group has distributed almost 140,000 pounds of food, according to Jackson. In addition to delivering groceries once a month to families, the Center also does pop-up food markets where individuals and families can select their own perishable and non-perishable foods.

“You cannot be truly healthy without access to healthy food,” Jackson said.

In 2017, Jackson, a physical therapist, was receiving chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer at the University of Chicago when she overheard a fellow patient ask her husband how they were going to navigate the cost of care. It wasn’t until after her appointment that Jackson realized the couple was talking about lunch. The patient and her husband were at the hospital for a daylong infusion and weren’t sure they could afford to feed themselves during the appointment. She found out that some of her fellow patients would skip meals to pay for parking.

Jackson soon realized that this was a common story for people facing cancer treatment. A few months later, Jackson attended a lecture on hospital-based food insecurity given by University of Chicago faculty member, Dr. Stacy Lindau. Ann partnered with Dr. Lindau and the leadership team of the cancer center to open a Feed1st pantry in the Comprehensive Cancer Center in November 2017 which served patients, caregivers and the hospital community.

“I was wanting there to be kindness and hope for everyone, but I recognized there were gaps and that people had needs that were going unmet,” Jackson said.

In the fall of 2019, Jackson had an epiphany that she needed to do more. She decided to deliver Thanksgiving baskets to families in the community who were dealing with cancer.

“I thought if people are hungry here, they have to be hungry at home,” she said.

The idea to deliver groceries to families who needed them was born. In 2020, Jackson officially started the Center for Food Equity in Medicine with a commitment to raise awareness and meet the nutritional needs for people living with chronic health conditions. Jackson said her organization focuses “on the dignity of the person” receiving the food and also tries to personalize groceries to each family so that people are less likely to throw away food.

“With our pantry, patients know that regardless of how they’re feeling at the end of the day, they’re going to be able to have a good meal when they get home,” Jackson said.

Pam Oliver, of Olympia Fields, volunteers regularly at the Center for Food Equity. She knows firsthand how hard it can be for those going through cancer to afford healthy food. Her daughter, Kristin, was diagnosed with a rare heart cancer in 2018. Kristin, who was living in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the time, struggled to buy food after pricey medications, treatments and living expenses. In Kristin’s case, her mother, Pam, opened a grocery store account to make sure her daughter had access to what she needed. But Oliver said not everyone has the support or resources to do that.

Kristin died two years after her diagnosis in June 2020, at the age of 31. When Oliver learned about the Center for Food Equity in Medicine, she knew it was an organization that she had to support. Kristin is a posthumous member of the organization’s board of directors.

“I know the need is so great and that nutritional food and support is critical for health,” Oliver said. “It’s all about my passion to try to fill a void. It’s not just my personal experience. It’s my passion to really make a difference.”

This Thursday, the Center for Food Equity in Medicine will hold a fundraising event from 4 p.m. to dusk at the Flossmoor Community House, 847 Hutchinson Road. The fundraiser will feature live music, raffles, and family entertainment such as face painting and lawn games. To buy tickets for the fundraiser, donate or become a volunteer, go to the Center’s website at www.foodequityinmedicine.org.