Community Relations Commission - Regular Meeting

Diane Grape Soda. I haven't had one for years because it was so awful for you. When I did find it, you told me it's okay. It's grape soda.

No, Diane. Grape. I'm sorry, did I say grape? I said Diane Grape.

Diane Grape Soda is delicious. They have a great flavor.

Is the grape flavor good? Yes, it is. It's busy in class C because it's worldwide.

In class C. I like tea.

Great.

you're going to be there buddy i know commissioner johnson's going to be late commissioner shanklin maybe so when they come in flag them down and tell them where to sit okay i like that As I said, I'll sign the buddy. Thank you.

This one is Shanklin. Okay. Okay.

I know. I'm sorry. It's just, I know it sounds creepy when I go there.

It's so creepy. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah, it's hard to say. I know he wouldn't.

We're doing the transition tonight.

Yes, he's a little, just a little longer than me. Yes. Thank you.

You ready? All right. Commissioners, we're going to call the Community Relations Commission meeting for August 13th to order. We'll start with a roll call.

Commissioner Guerrero? Present.

Commissioner Bravo? Present. Commissioner Brown?

Present. Commissioner Gooda?

Present. Commissioner Garvey? Present. Commissioner Johnson? Present.

You have a quorum.

Thank you. The next thing on our agenda is the acceptance of the journal for the Journal of Proceedings for the Community Relations Commission meeting held on July 9th, 2026. Take a motion to approve those.

I move.

We have a motion. We have a motion and a second. Do we have any discussion related to those? Hearing no discussion, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The next thing on our agenda is a communication from Mayor McNamara. That communication reads... dated August 13th, 2026 to the Community Relations Commission from Thomas P. McNamara in regards to appointing Jaria Kruta as the chair of the Community Relations Commission. So I will read what the mayor says here. He says, thank you to Eric Brown for serving as the chair of the Community Relations Commission. I hereby appoint Jaria Kruta as the chair of the Community Relations Commission. Thank you for all your dedication and service. to this significant commission. So I'll invite Jeria up here to take the floor.

Thank you, Erica. It has been wonderful to be with you. You have done an amazing job and I have big shoes to fill. All right, we will continue to move on. Thank you for the welcome. Next up we will have the memo from Thomas McNamara regarding the resignation of Commissioner McDowell. NSO reads, I am writing to inform the commission that the commissioner, James McDowell, has submitted a resignation. Commissioner McDowell was appointed to the commission in December 2023 and has been active and insightful member throughout his tenure. I sincerely appreciate his service and contributions to the commission and I wish him all the best. Tom McNamara. All right, we don't have any public speakers tonight, so we will continue to move on, and it looks like we have an informational-only session on food insecurity, and we have some great speakers before us, and our first one tonight is Alderman Tamir Bell with the City of Rockford. Thank you. Oh, I do.

All right. This one works better than my aldermanic seat, Mike. So this is going to be fun. First off, thank you so much for your service to this community by way of this commission. Madam Chair, congratulations on your appointment. And I'm super excited to be here, not only as the 13th ward alderman, but an advocate for reducing the food insecurity barriers in our community. sitting here with me and you'll hear from them in a few moments after I am done but our advocates and executive leaders in the nonprofit space as it relates to reducing the food insecurity barrier in our community and so these are the people who do the work every single day and I just get the privilege of working alongside them to not only pass policy but also invest into their organizations So I will cut across the field and go through some of the things that I have pointed out here and then open it up for a few questions. But I would love to meet one on one or with two or three of you following this to continue the conversation to see how we can best collaborate from a commission to council perspective. We heard just a few weeks ago that our mayor, Tom McNamara, is stepping down, and we appointed at council on Monday an interim mayor. And so alongside my colleagues on council now, the interim mayor and Alderwoman, or now mayor, Neal, looking forward to continuing to address this issue in our community to reduce the barriers for our residents. So count me a friend in that conversation, please. Again, Tamir Bell. I get the honor of serving in the 13th Ward and representing you guys on City Council. I wanted to open up with a need statement that was in the pro forma from Farmers Rising's proposal to the city for the mobile food grocery store. So the majority of Rockford's metropolitan areas contain food access tracks where low-income residents face both distance and transportation barriers to supermarkets. More concerning, Winnebago County ranks in the bottom 11th percentile for food insecurity among Illinois' 102 counties, with 41,200 food insecure residents, equaling 15% of the population. High inflation has worsened this crisis as food costs have increased more than 11% since 2022, disproportionately impacting communities already struggling with access. And I could go on and on about this, but I won't belabor my comments today. But I wanted to open up with that because I represent the neighborhood that I grew up in here in the city of Rockford, and that's the Lewis Lemon neighborhood. But if you look at the 13th Ward from the river all the way down to Farm and Fleet, you look at the food swamp and the lack of access, not just by way of produce, but also pathways. And so I'm happy to share that over the next five years, $65 million will be invested in the 13th ward for infrastructure improvements. And so when I say not just produce, right, you can't just address this issue by bringing produce to neighborhoods. You also need to redevelop and invest into the pathways. Thanks to our CIP plan, the 13th ward will benefit from new sidewalks and streets and other infrastructure improvements. So that's one part. And when you talk about access, I'll also touch on the produce side of things. not just our pantries, not just our gas station and convenience stores, not just the Save-A-Lot on West State Street, not just, not just, right, and you can keep going down the list of opportunities that exist or do not exist for residents in the 13th Ward, and you could look across, I would say, multiple different areas and corners of our community who are struggling with the lack of access to fresh food, there is a coalition in our community, and many, that are trying to address this issue with the Food Insecurity Task Force. And I'll touch on that here in a little bit. But again, these partners here next to me. So currently working with, and I'll give a brief update on 13th Ward and the progress that we're making trying to bring more fresh produce. working with, and we launched a housing task force. So yes, we need more housing. But we also, I would say, also need more development. And so they've told us for many years that we need more rooftops in order to get the retail that we need or the grocery store that we need, right? And so I have brought together a coalition of developers and just stakeholders to not only plan and strategize, but invest into housing and commercial development in the 13th Ward. So hopefully in the coming months and certainly coming years, we'll see more housing and more commercial development along West State Street and Springfield Corners. We're looking at taking a vacant building on West State Street and turning it into a food co-op Market a neighborhood market and so about a thousand square foot 1200 square feet worth of a market from with the Forest City, no, the Screw City Food Co-op to provide farm-to-market, farm-to-neighborhood market access to fresh and affordable food. Also, I mentioned earlier the mobile food grocery store with Farmers Rising, and you'll hear more about that later. But I wanted to touch on the policy on addressing food insecurity. So dating back, I think, 75 days. I know it was 75 days or so into me being elected. So that would be May, June. Just say July of 2025, city council approved this framework that is in front of you. I know it says draft, but it ultimately got approved. And the purpose of this policy is to establish a citywide framework to reduce food insecurity in Rockford by improving access to healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food. The city recognizes that access to food is a basic human need and a fundamental component of public health, economic stability, and quality of life. And so I would jump down to the definitions, and I'm sure you've now already read through this. Food insecurity, a lack of consistent access to enough affordable food for an active, healthy life. Food desert. food swamps, food systems. And then it outlines the goals. We want to increase access. And so just touched on a little bit about that, whether that be investing in our food pantries when, I would say, I think it was about eight months ago. Correct me if I'm wrong. About eight months ago, city council approved between $100,000 and $150,000 to go to our local pantries when the federal government cut SNAP. And it caused a significant burden, not only on our pantries, but our residents as well. The Food and Security Task Force also launched an awareness campaign that is still going on. It's ongoing with Rockford Mass Transit District to provide palm cards and information and education around the routes you need to take on the city bus to and from a food pantry. And so the closest one to Route 13 or Route 5. That's all laid out in the information in many different languages for residents in our community. And so that was another, I would say, big win for the Food and Security Task Force that our Northern Illinois Nonprofit Center, help me, NIPNI. Northern Illinois Center for Nonprofit Excellence. I always get it wrong. Their team helped compile a coalition after the Food Insecurity Summit about two years ago. And so that team has grown, and I think there's over 75 different stakeholders that consistently partake in meetings and discussion around how to address this issue. Number two, support local food initiatives. And so I would say the local food initiatives that we have invested in over the last year since passing this is, one, investing in our food pantries. Two, investing into the $622,000 into Farmer's Rising's mobile food grocery store. and a few others. Promote equity, support coordination is another goal, report impact, and then also number five, sustainability. So key strategies, and I'll jump down and just touch on the bolded areas, but land use and zoning. Community programs, community engagement and education, funding and incentives. And so I just wanted to highlight this and get to this information so that you could take a look at that. And should any amendments need to be made, maybe we could bring it back to make this a more robust framework so that our staff and city council can continue to address the food insecurity barriers that exist in our community. And moving right along, I touched on the RMTD awareness campaign, the Food Insecurity Task Force. One thing I'll touch on before I open up for questions is about a year and a half ago, two years ago, the late president of the Rockford branch, NAACP branch, George Scott, He brought forth an idea to our community, to many different stakeholders and leaders, city staff, representatives' offices, and really anyone who would listen. And George Scott brought forth a vision for a mobile food grocery store. He wanted to have an initiative and a program that would provide access to many different neighborhoods throughout our community. And I'm proud to say that vision that the late George Scott, President George Scott had is now funded and supported by Farmers Rising as a nonprofit partner and City Center Market as the grocer. This was a long time coming. I was super really just proud and excited to see it come to fruition. I can't wait to see it on the streets and providing food. But I just wanted to share, before the vote as city council, I think it was two or three weeks before the actual vote, I went to Milwaukee. and visited the mobile food grocery store that they have. So the vision came from Milwaukee, or the program came from Milwaukee. George Scott brought it here to Rockford. And I saw seniors, I saw single mothers, and you name it, just really any type of person on that truck purchasing food that day. and you can buy potatoes, milk, cheese, you name it, fresh vegetables and fruit. The people were super nice, and I guess my experience was, and my thought while walking away was, we really need this in Rockford. And I'm just super excited again to say that we are getting one here in the city of Rockford. And hopefully many should this one and win this one as a success. And so just want to say thank you to the partners here sitting with me on your continuous work to reduce the barriers surrounding food insecurity. And the last thing I'll say, I think I already said the last thing. Yesterday we had our second annual back to school giveaway at Rockford Ridge, formerly known as Concord Commons. And there was a young lady who had three bags, four bags from Save-A-Lot, which is about a mile and a half or so down the road from Rockford Ridge. Part of going on, she's getting dropped off at the front and also a box of food, right? If you've ever been to Save-A-Lot or Aldi, you get where I'm going with this. So a lot of groceries, one person to carry. She had to get dropped off at the front because transportation is a barrier for her. She also is on SNAP and used up her $150 that she received on that same day, not just for herself. She told me she had $17 left over for herself. The rest of the money that she spent that same day on that same trip was for her family, for her aunt and other nephews, I believe. And so long story short, the The short walk was this, from the entrance to the way back of Rockford Ridge. But she needed help. And so me and a Rockford police officer helped, since we were right there, helped her carry it. The point of the story is she's not the only one who deals with transportation barriers. And obviously on SNAP, SNAP's getting cut. The continuous burden that it places on families to not be able to access fresh and affordable food on the west side, north side, south side, and southeast side of our community. it's a real burden and it's up to us to address this issue and so once again thank you so much for your time it's volunteer work it's much needed work and count me in as a partner for addressing this issue and thank you so much for allowing me to speak because I open it up for any questions

Alderman Bell, thank you for coming in tonight to speak to us. Is there an area in Rockford that you feel that maybe there's a need more? Or is it just the whole city in general where we need to focus our work on?

Yeah, I think for me it would be very selfish to say it's just the 13th ward. I think that when you look at what's happening at the federal level, more and more individuals who you may not even think are facing a burden, that burden has probably doubled from where they were a year ago to today, if not tripled. More families in our community are facing significant challenges, whether that is the increased cost of living, rent, insurance, all of the things, health care. And that being cut as well, and so I believe you know fundamentally we as a city have to ensure that our people our residents Our neighbors are being fed and have food on the table And to answer your question do I believe that there is one area that we should focus on I think that that's a I don't think that there's one area. I think that one area, if I were to say there is one area, it's the city of Rockford. How we do that has to be in a collaborative way. And I think that it's listening to our nonprofit leaders who are in this work at the grassroots level every day. I think it's bringing together our business community. who, in fact, our business community are the employers of the individuals who are facing this burden, bringing them into the conversation and letting them know that they too have a seat at the table, listening to the Food Insecurity Task Force, bringing the Food Insecurity Task Force to a commission like this, to the mayor's office, to city council to speak, for them to continue to advocate, and then also, again, collaborating, I believe, and I've been one of the strongest advocates in this, and bridging the gap between commission and council. We were put in these seats for a reason. And I think that between commission and council, if we can continue to strengthen the relationships, we can answer that question as to what corner are we going to focus on today. But I guess to answer your question, that one area is the city of Rockford.

I just want to say thank you for being so focused on this and moving things along. I've been following all the things that you've been doing in this area. And I, for one, understand that I used to pastor a church on 20th and Sandy Hollow. and the lead pastures closed that campus and we had a pantry. And that was a big hit in that area. And my question is that I know that there's a new grocery store called Rancho. Is that in that area?

So I would say, I believe it's El Rancho on Broadway near Rockhouse. Kisswalk in Broadway, yes. And I believe my details are only about 80% accurate. I don't know each number, but I'm going to just throw it out here from what I think I know. What I do know is that they have benefited from, I don't know the dollar amount, but from state dollars, a state grant. The Grocery Initiative Act that Governor Pritzker and the state legislator passed, I believe, two years ago, maybe even three at this point. But they benefited from state dollars, but also private dollars as well, their own dollars, to make that happen. When you look at the transformation of that space, it's inspiring, at least for me. And I hope that we can continue to support residents and business owners who want to provide fresh and affordable food in our community and incentivize them to do so. And I'll touch back to that area, right? That's not the 13th ward. I believe it's the fifth ward on the border of the 11th ward. That area is food insecure. And so I believe that that grocery store is going to do well because they're now providing a resource that was not available before.

Also, the mobile is the part that getting, even though there is a grocery store, is the people how to get them there. With the mobile, that helps come right into their community. And you just gave me a flashback of when I was younger with my little children and I didn't have a car. And I had to walk all the way to Jules, which was like two miles with two bags like this down the street. So it's real. And I lived in a good community, too. But and people think like you said just because it's not on the west side that there's not the security other and other places to in Rockford, but I really commend this work and And I think it's it's not just having a place to get the food is for it to get them there So I understand the dynamics of what you're doing is bringing it to the people and fresh fresh food, too Thank you for all you're doing.

Thank you

I have a quick question. And full disclosure, I am a member of the task force and attended some of the early meetings, but haven't attended them recently. But I do have a quick question about the Alderman Bell, about the food co-op, the Screw City co-op that you mentioned that was 1,000 square feet. I'm actually, another full disclosure, I'm actually a member of the Screw City co-op. And the last thing I had heard is that they were thinking of putting uh, some sort of a co-op presence of screw city co-op presence in a shipping container on the Northeast side, which I was very vocal in, you know, kind of wondering why they were doing that. Cause that isn't where the need is. So long story short, my question is just, you know, if you can give me a quick update on that.

Yeah, and I hope I didn't jump the gun. I know this is live streamed. I just want to be transparent in the work that I'm doing. We do have a partnership right now. We're more in the beginning stages. But there's funding lined up, and things are closer to being ready to go than they were even four months ago. And I don't believe that the Screw City Co-op has formally introduced us to the membership yet. However, I would say the concept itself, while the Screw City Food Co-op is the best partner, in my opinion, to do this with the developer that is at the table, should the screw city food co-op not want to do this as just a co-op membership style business we're going to continue to seek another partner for the fresh produce and so i'm really committed in bringing fresh markets into neighborhoods whether that is working with our convenience stores or in the liquor stores which i think we have too many in neighborhoods and turning those into or somehow working with those business owners to provide fresh food and What they currently provide so I think there's many different ways you can go about this but my Statement on the partnership of the food co-op on West State Street with the developer is still in the beginning stages and

Great. Well, thank you. Thanks for your work for that, and I'm excited to look forward to that.

That would be cool to have, like, Schnucks Mobile grocery store to go onto. That's a great idea.

Any other questions, commissioners?

I just want to say thank you once again and never hesitate to reach out.

Thank you. Thank you, Adam and Mel. Appreciate it. Next up we will hear from Tabitha Endres-Cruz, Executive Director of Rock River Valley Pantry.

Thank you. It's on. I'm loud, so I don't particularly care for microphones, because they make me even louder. So I apologize in advance if I appear to be screaming. But like she said, my name is Tabitha, and I'm the CEO of the Rock River Valley Pantry. Thank you for having me here tonight. I was asked to speak a little bit on our programs and services at the pantry, who we serve, what we do, what we give out. as well as a little bit on how we structure our organization. Before I can speak on anything to do with the pantry, the first thing that I always ask individuals I talk to is to picture in your head the client who comes to the pantry. Who is it who you think? What do they look like? What do they do? Who are they when they come to the pantry? Who is that? And then look in the mirror. Because people who suffer from food insecurity, who visit pantries, who are going to be going to this mobile grocery store, are just like you and I. But for some reason in their life, they're at a tough point, and they have to reach out and ask for help. And when I tell you they're at a tough point, they're at a tough point. We don't hear all the stories from the people who come in, because they don't want us to know their stories. And to be honest with you, we don't need to know them. We're there to give them food. to feed them and to feed their families. But what I can say is when myths are perpetuated, that's when trouble occurs. And so we as a pantry, our board of directors and staff and myself, it is part of our core values to educate the community on food insecurity and on the role we have in that. So it's really important that I start everything with that. The other thing that I can say is we've been in the community for over 50 years. The Rock River Valley Pantry started as a very small initiative by a Rock Valley College student back in 1974. He saw a need and wanted to fulfill it. We started on a storefront in downtown Rockford. The city gave the pantry that storefront for free. And we served about 125 individuals in the first few years. Today we are serving over close to 80,000 individuals a year. um we do that primarily with volunteers we have a very small staff team there's seven of us and the rest are all done with volunteers volunteers fill 125 volunteer slots a week they give over 14 000 hours of service to the community feeding the hungry each year we can't do it without them we provide what is called emergency food We're emergency pantry. We are not meant to be the sole source of food for any individual or any household. We provide four days of food for each person in the household for each meal within that four days. And you can come and get that food from us once a month. if necessary you can come back a second time a month and get a smaller distribution it is like a partial distribution and it is meant to kind of get you through either till you can get to the new another pantry or whatever resources that you need to get you through to the next month then In fiscal year 26, which we just ended, we did serve a total of 79,705 individuals. We do have two locations. We are the only pantry that is actually open every day, Monday through Friday. Our main location is in South Rockton, which is real close by here, kind of behind the Justice Center. That is where our warehouse is. All food that we give out goes through there. And we distribute food from that location between 1 to 4, Monday through Friday. Our secondary location is at 1100 Broadway, and that's inside the Crusader Clinic. We have a great partnership with the Crusader Clinic, and we are open there Monday through Friday, 10 to noon. That pantry has seen a tremendous growth in the last few years. I've been with the pantry in this role for about three years, a little over three years now. When I started, we might have 12 households a day at Broadway. Now we're seeing 45, 65. Last Friday, we served 150 individuals in two hours at that pantry. So that is right down the road from that new grocery store. So that new grocery store is a blessing in that area. We served 58,278 individuals at our South Rockton location last year, 21,427 at Broadway. Over the past five years, are you ready for this? I don't know if you want to hear this, but we have seen a 285% increase in the numbers we served. During fiscal year 22, we only served 29,000 individuals. There's a multitude of things that lead to that. And unfortunately, we're the endpoint. We're seeing the people when they are desperate for that food. We went from serving approximately 960,000 pounds of food a year to serving almost 3 million pounds of food a year. We do that by donations, donations, and donations. We fundraise. Most of our donors are individual donors, believe it or not. We're not a government agency. We get very little government funding. However, the city did provide us a fantastic boost of funding last fiscal year when the government shut down. That was much needed, because without that funding, we could have fallen short. And we are proud to say we don't turn anybody away. And we have yet to have to limit the amount of food that we give out. We're continuously giving out food. And the type of food that we give out, we always talk about this as well, because a lot of times people think or admit that it's junk food. It's not good food. It's just junk food. And it's not at all. We have a little pie diagram that we have that talks about the slice of what we serve, a slice of what we serve. 23% of what we serve is grains. 12% is dairy and or milk included in there. 23% is protein, and proteins come in a variety of sources. They can be beans. They can be meat. We have a variety of different sources. 30% vegetables and 12% fruit. So it's a very well-balanced offer that we offer to individuals. Excuse me. How we get our food is another big thing that people ask a lot. So we have three main ways in which we get our food. The one main way is food donations. And those food donations come from a variety of different things. So businesses, individuals, churches will hold food drives. Individuals just come to our doors and give donations. We as a pantry hold focused, Food drives throughout the year. You might have heard of our peanut butter rally. We're about to kick off our cereal drive. Those are high needed items that we give out on a regular basis. Excuse me. So we always like to get that into focus and get kind of a stockpile of that when we can. In addition to those donations, the other way that we really see a great way that we get donations is through our program called Retail Rescue. We actually have a staff member and a volunteer who go out to a series of grocery stores throughout the Rockford, McChesney Park area, even up to Rockton-Roscoe area. And we collect food from a variety of grocery stores that they donate to us that they have deemed unsellable. Not necessarily unedible, but unsellable. So for instance, yesterday I was working in the warehouse and we had probably 15 boxes of cereal from Aldi that the box was ripped. The contents are perfectly fine, but you and I know we are not going to pay. So we fix the box, make sure that the packaging inside is perfectly fine and the food is fine and that it's distributed. So we get a lot of food from that. In fact, the majority of the bread we give out, the desserts and sweets we give out, meat and produce, produce outside of this time of year, is all from retail rescue. So that's a big part of it. Schnucks, Aldi's, Meijer, Walmart, those all, and plus a few other small ones that are a vital, vital source of food for us. In addition to donations, we do purchase food. Our budget for this fiscal year is $295,000 for food. We purchase that from wholesalers. So large wholesalers. In addition, we also purchase food from the Northern Illinois Food Bank. They have food at a discounted rate that we can purchase from them when it's available. And then in addition to that, we get food from federal commodities. So that is dollars that the federal government uses to purchase food. Managed by the state, the state purchases those foods and it's distributed to the Northern Illinois Food Bank, who then distribute it out to participating pantries. It's a drop in the bucket of what we need. You might get 18,000 pounds of food a month from that program, and remember I said we serve almost three million pounds of food a year, so it's not quite enough, but it comes at no cost to us, and it does give us a little cushion. And that varies wildly in the last couple of years. Fresh produce, frozen vegetables, things like that have been added in and our clients really appreciate that added food in there. Like I mentioned earlier, we do, We're focused on volunteers. We need volunteers to run that. We have 125 volunteerships a week. And we have a multitude of opportunities for volunteering throughout the community. We work with key partners throughout the city. A lot of the work, a lot of people just think of pantries as when people come to us. But we actually provide food for a lot of different areas. One big organization we provide food for is the Rockford Peace Center. We provide the Peace Center shelf-stable boxes of food that they come and pick up pallets at a time for us. then keep in their office so that if they have somebody who's in a situation where they plead with nothing, they at least have that box of food that they can give them, that then can give them a little cushion for it, that if they're not, if they don't feel safe coming to a pantry or anything like that, that we have that food available for them. We also work with the Winnebago County Housing Authority and the Rockford Housing Authority, and they have case managers who reach out to their clients who live in their different housing areas and they will actually come and pick up food for them. So if they're unable to get out for whatever reason, lack of transportation, medical reasons, we will get food packages ready for them and their case manager picks it up from us and then delivers it right to their door. So we do that. Once a week we're getting food for both of those organizations together. And then we do work with the Rockford Fire Department with their crisis intervention program and so they call us on a regular basis to come and they'll pick up food for residents throughout the city who they come across who need, who can't get to us but need the food. So we work hand in hand with quite a bit of different organizations to get food where it needs to be. Unfortunately, we don't have the ability at this point to deliver, but we can work with those agencies to get food to individuals that need it.

Okay.

So, Tabitha, earlier Alderman Bell had said sometimes it's a transportation issue for people to get to food pantries. I believe Rock River Valley Pantry is on like a bus line, is that right, for both locations?

And we intentionally, our locations have been selected intentionally to be near a bus stop and a bus line so that individuals can get to us from the bus. And we're within walking distance to the transportation center downtown as well.

So I personally want to tell you thank you because I've had several tenants that had to go to the pantry located in Crusader by Broadway. My transitional home is directly behind the building. So a lot of them had some issues when SNAP benefits got cut off. And it was dramatic. A lot of them didn't know.

So it's good that it's known throughout the city.

I think sometimes people struggle to find access because they don't know where it's at. And I think that goes along with that. Knowing that it's on a bus line, it's actually on the bus line too. It's communicated to them so they know where it's located at. So I think you guys do a phenomenal job with that. So I wanted to tell you thank you. I had a question. When you had brought up pretty much like you guys don't receive a lot of government assistance. You guys pretty much donations come from people. What do you think an investment from the city looks like though that could assist you? I don't know, maybe the next five years, whatever that looks like. How do you feel about that?

The support that we received from the city during the government shutdown, because just for a point of reference, we saw a 75% increase per day for about a week to two week period of time. We were inundated. We had to get extra volunteers in and everything just to get the food out to the people who were in need. And so when the city stepped forward and donated those funding, gave those funding to us, it allows us to purchase food. And when we, donations are absolutely fabulous, food donations are fabulous, and we do utilize everything that we possibly can, but it may not be what we need at the time. So when we see a 75% increase, we know our canned fruits, canned vegetables, our meat, all of that is going to get depleted very fast. And it may not be the donations that we get in right away. And also, donations have to be handled. Every single thing we get in that's donated, a volunteer has to touch and inspect prior for it to be out the door. food that we purchase doesn't have to be. It can be delivered and go right out the door that same day. So it's a fast turnaround. So whenever it ends, on top of that, this is the biggest thing when we get cash donations, whether it's Citi or anybody, our buying power is so much bigger than you going to the grocery store. We can buy cases of cereal for $3 where it costs more than $3 for a box of cereal. Yeah, right. So donation, government and health, what it can do and what it can provide for us is a consistent revenue stream. And that's important, and Jackie's probably over here shaking her head because that's one thing that nonprofits who rely on a lot of donations, or primary donations, is you're always chasing that. When you have a consistent revenue stream, you know what you can expect, you know what you can do with that, and how you can forecast ahead and be prepared for those big influxes that may come.

I'm so glad you shared that, because I would have not known that a case, you could buy a case, I don't know how expensive cereal is. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

And I mean, granted, that is a discounted price for the normal, right?

Yeah, it's a better price, though.

You know, when we were talking today, I was doing some numbers, because I was writing a grant today.

$18,000 for a case of peanut butter for us.

That's, you know, almost 20 jars of peanut butter for $18.

That's a lot.

That's a lot less.

Yes. So your numbers, the growth, right? So we're seeing more families there. Have you guys dissected it based off of, are you seeing more seniors? Is it more working families?

It has, the one thing our numbers have done, even though they've risen, they've remained consistent in the percentages that we serve. So we track age, and so we track zero to 18, 19 to 64, and 65 and up. That's what we monitor. They have remained consistent in that it's pretty much 10% seniors, 35% kids, and then the rest is all adults, or that age, 19 to 64.

Do you guys have a partnership with RPS? Like if there was a situation where a student could say, we have nothing, because they can't talk to a parent, or they don't have a parent that's frequently there. Is there a relationship?

We've had the high school counselors call up before. And we've been able to get food through them to the children and that family. We always have what's called, we have a system that's called a proxy. So if somebody can't get to us, but they have a friend who can get to us, there's a form that they can fill out right with them and prove that they're okay with picking up food for the person that they want. So we have that system as well.

OK. And the only reason I was asking that, because you had brought up the ages 19 through 64. Yeah. Gotcha. OK. That makes sense.

How do you get your volunteers? How do you recruit them?

We mainly recruit through social media. We do a lot of social media. We also do it all over our website as well. And then a lot of it's word of mouth. We have volunteers who have been serving with us for over 20 years. And then they brought their friends and other friends. On Wednesday, we chuckle and we have a group of ladies that we call the Golden Girls. They're a group of friends. And then one friend started, got the other friend started, got another friend started, and now they're like, it's like their Wednesday meetup at the pantry to serve the, you know, the hungry heart community. So it's fantastic. And that's one thing, too, you know, we talk about volunteerism, and most of our volunteers are retired, obviously, because the rest of us are working during the day, so we're not available to volunteer always. But their retirement is a fantastic social outlet for them. It's very great for socializing. In addition to that, it keeps people like if you're looking for a community, a place to get connected, volunteering at a pantry is a great place to do that. Yes, I agree. Because we have our Monday crews, we have our Tuesday crews, our Wednesday crews, and we have a group of ladies who met at the pantry, they do the work, and then they head out for lunch. They help at our warehouse in the morning, and then they have lunch every Wednesday. That's what they do. Our volunteers have formed book clubs. And now we meet outside of the pantry and go to lunch and just have books that they read and discuss that. And they form that all on their own because they've gotten to know each other throughout the years. And our volunteers, you know, I said they're primarily our senior citizens because they're retired, but we have volunteers ranging in age from their 20s all the way to well into their 90s who are serving in a regular basis.

Tabitha, I have a question. Do you see more during, like, now it's back to school, do you see a lot more people coming in now since it's back to school? Or is it more like Thanksgiving there's more? Or what would be a good time of year if there were to say that we were taking up donations to be able to increase, like, as commissioners? Is there a time that you would really like to be more focused on?

So the one thing we always talk about is hunger doesn't have

Correct.

So we are meeting people all year round. We do see ups and lows with our numbers around different things. For instance, tax season. We do see a dip in the numbers that we serve, and we usually see a little bit of a rise in our numbers in the summertime because children are out of school and they're eating more at home, that kind of thing. But we do see our donations, however, have a season. So we do see the season of the holidays that definitely picks up our donations. So we're really, it's February, March, April. Those are our seasons where we see a dip in the donations, and particularly in food drives, that kind of thing that we see. So any time during that is really good time.

Thank you.

Commissioners, any other questions? Thank you. Thank you, Tabitha. We appreciate it. Next up, we'll have Jackie, I'm going to say, De Batista, Executive Director of Farmers Rising, and is it Mantis Sols? The Mobile Grocery Store Coordinator for Farmers Rising. Thank you for coming.

Thanks for the invitation to come and speak. First to Rita, a good friend of mine who invited us particularly, but also to the commission for the work that you do, I think. And it's nice to be here with my colleague, Montez. Jackie DeBattista, I'm the executive director at Farmers Rising. It's kind of fun to be here with Alderman Bell and Tabitha and now us speaking, because you get kind of three different perspectives. like the policy focus on food insecurity. And then you have direct service emergency action organization. And then Farmers Rising is a systems change organization. And you really need all three of those types of actors in order to effect change and ensure that people have food to eat. And so we're going to talk a little bit about Farmers Rising as an organization, just to kind of give a background as to why Farmers Rising is implementing a mobile food grocery store. I'm guessing by just the name Farmers Rising, it's very obvious that we work first and foremost serving farmers and that there might feel like there's kind of a disconnect there. And so just trying to kind of explain the work that we do. and framing it within systems change. And so our mission statement is Farmers Rising builds sustainable local food and farm systems. And that's our official mission statement. And a lot of times, people don't understand what a food system is. We know what food is. We know what farms are. But what is a food system? And a food system really encompasses everybody. All of us are part of food systems. And it encompasses from the producers, from the farmers, all the way to the consumers. And so when we're trying to effect change and improve food systems for the betterment of our communities, there's a lot of actors and a lot of places for intervention that exist. And we work within four areas within food systems that provide opportunities to intervene and strengthen food systems for all of our benefit. So I just wanted to go through. So we kind of have a tagline. We rebranded in 2024. So we were previously known as Angelic Organics Learning Center. So sometimes that is an aha moment for some people that know of that organization and are less familiar with the name Farmers Rising. And we rebranded for multiple reasons, but one of which is that the learning center, it always got shortened to that. And people were like, are you a preschool? Are you a religious-affiliated organization with the angelic? So there was a lot of confusion about the core work that we do. And the core work that we do is we serve farmers first and foremost. And so our newer tagline is that Farmers Rising lifts up the people doing local and regenerative farming. And we do that by supporting the launch and growth of local sustainable farms, by improving food security, and empowering people to make food choices that positively impact personal, community, and environmental health. And so you can see within there the touch point that we have with food security directly. And we do this work through four main programs. I feel like for the sake of time, I can kind of flip through these two slides a little bit quickly. But we do really strongly advocate for local is better, because when you support local farmers in our area, that supports everybody's food security. And the reality is, big picture-wise, all of us are food insecure. And I think that we really learned that during the pandemic. that truly within days, the shelves in the grocery stores were empty. And why is that happening? And why did it happen so quickly? It's because we're relying on national and international food systems that broke down very quickly. And we don't have a strong local food system to turn to. And as a producer, as a farmer myself, I had people calling me out of the blue wanting to purchase. I'm a beef farmer, so purchase beef from me, who I'd never heard from before, who had probably never purchased from a local farmer ever before either. But they were worried about feeding their families. And the local farmers were who they turned to. But we also tend to, in times like today, even though food costs are high, we tend to kind of forget about our local farmers also. And we kind of go back to our old habits of purchasing the cheapest, the most readily available. So we really advocate strongly for local food is better. It economically supports the farmers. It supports our communities. Those dollars stay in our communities. It maximizes the quality of the food, the flavor of the food. And it really creates true food security. So first, that's what we advocate for at Farmers Rising. And then we also advocate for regenerative agriculture, understanding that our agricultural systems also have been strained over time, have been depleted over time. And so we really advocate for regenerative agriculture. So there's just a couple of things about what regenerative agriculture means. I know that there's a lot of different ways Organizations, it's kind of a buzzword, but regenerative agriculture, in my opinion, is perhaps more inclusive than organic agriculture because regenerative is on a spectrum, and all farmers can be regenerative. And if you're on a spectrum, it means that you can improve your systems over time, which is what we all need to do. So anyway, so... Don't want to belabor that too much, but it is kind of our two main foci. But we have four now main program initiatives. Previously, before the mobile grocery store, it was three. And so, of course, farmer training is one. Local farmers are key to sustainable communities. We work with our farmers providing business training. So a lot of people get into farming because they like to grow things and produce food, but they're really terrible business managers. And that's extremely important in order to have a successful farm. So pretty much our main programming is called Take Root. It's an in-depth farm business class where we help farmers write business plans, put them into contact with tax professionals, with bankers. We help them. secure loans for their farms, et cetera. And so we really work closely with farmers in that realm. We have a peer-to-peer mentorship network because farmers learn best from other farmers. So we have a mentor network where farmers can come together and learn from one another and hold field days on each other's farms and build relationships to support one another. We provide land access. So we have a regenerative livestock incubator program. And an incubator is like a business incubator you've probably heard of. We have a farmer incubator program. We have a main location located in Caledonia, which is really close to Roscoe. And we have land where farmers can sign up with us, have access to growing space. and produce food in a very low risk environment. So we provide them with low cost access to land. We have equipment that they can utilize. We have staff that can help them. And so it's kind of a low risk way for them to learn how to farm before they might invest in purchasing land or sign a long term contract. And so it kind of reduces the risk of new and beginning farmers, recognizing that we need new and beginning farmers to come and replace a lot of retiring farmers. And we have a new equipment share program, so we have livestock trailers, we have a skid steer, we have poultry crates, we have a poultry processing trailer, we have a honey processing trailer, things that farmers can rent and use on their own farms as they need it, because equipment's extremely expensive. So that's a little bit about farmer training. We have a full-fledged educational program arm called Community Programs, where we bring youth to our facilities in Caledonia. And we also have an urban farm in Rockford at Black Hawk Courts, RHA community. So we also bring youth there. And so we have field trips, farm camps. We have overnight camps, day camps. We do culinary programs. We have fun programs. Just bringing people out to the farm, most people don't have access to farms anymore. Like in the past, everyone had an uncle or a grandparent or something where they could go out and visit them on the farm. And those connections and relationships have been lost over time as fewer and fewer people farm. And we also incorporate local foods into all of the meals that we prepare. So we kind of walk the walk or walk the talk. I don't know how you would say that. I'm really bad with metaphors. So I'll always say I'm wrong, but you all know what I'm talking about. But we purchase from local farmers and incorporate those into all the meals that we serve. And then feeding our communities. So our Farmers Rising Rockford initiative is where we've, since 2002, so for 24 years, we have been working within the food insecurity realm. And for probably the last, I don't know, 16 of those years, that's been focused at Black Hawk Courts. And so we have a half-acre urban farm there. It's got two high tunnels. We have outdoor growing spaces. And we run a community-supported agriculture program out of there where anyone from Rockford can purchase a subscription to vegetables. And then we donate a lot of free vegetables to the community right there at Black Hawk Courts. So we have free CSA shares that are donated every week to the community during the growing season We have dedicated community garden beds at the community as well that the residents can access 24-7 And we grow things on demand if someone wants us to grow okra for them We'll grow them in the community beds and then they can come and pick whenever they want and We hold farmers market stands and RHA communities, so we'll take vegetables. We are signed up with the link match program in Illinois, so people can come buy a bundle of collard greens for $2 and then they get another bundle of collard greens for free because there's a link match program if they use their link cards to purchase the vegetables. And so we do those stands at different RHA communities across Rockford. We offer cooking, gardening, food preservation classes, and farm tours and volunteer opportunities. And then our fourth initiative is now the Rockford Mobile Grocery Store, which touches upon a lot of all of this and kind of in many ways pulls it all together. It's an educational piece to the community. It's an opportunity for us to purchase local foods and sell them back into our community and provide healthy, fresh food that's locally grown, as well as food that is brought into the city center market on Cisco trucks as well. So it's not 100% local food, but local food will be an opportunity for farmers to get involved. But we really want to make sure that there's fresh food available to people in their neighborhoods where they live. And so because this is so new, very recently funded by the city of Rockford, which we're very excited about and thankful for, We're still working on some of our taglines and our marketing things. We just finalized our brochure yesterday that we'll be printing. So we will have handouts about this. We will have flyers available to the public. But it is a brand new initiative. And so Montez will speak about this. But we have four goals for this. It's making affordable fresh food accessible to low income and low access neighborhoods in Rockford, which we heard are many. And I will say that there's new data out. So when Alderman Bell said that inflation costs have gone up 11%, there's new data that was just released that costs have gone up 33% since 2019. Wow. So we're all feeling the pinch. We all know that we're all feeling the pinch. But just when we think about the people in our community that can't afford food, when you think about a 33% increase over six, seven years, that's really, really, really hard for them and really forces a lot of difficult decisions. The second goal is to improve the overall health of Rockford residents. Having access to fresh food is such a boon for personal health. It's so important. Farmers Rising implemented a program which was canceled by the current administration, which was called Illinois Eats. And we purchased food from local farmers and delivered it to pantries for free. So Rock River Valley Pantry, every week we would bring in shipments to Salvation Army, Rock River Valley Pantry, St. Elizabeth's, multiple pantries in our community and beyond outside of Rockford as well. And I think that there's a little bit of a... There's a little bit of a stereotype that poor people, people who can't afford to purchase food, don't know how to cook, that they don't use fresh foods. There's a lot of different stereotypes, I think, in the community. And it was really wonderful to just blow that out of the water. and see the demand. Because we all know it, but to see it in practice, and just to see. And we had people who would call the farmers that were participating in the program. So we had pantry patrons see farmers' information on the packaging, call them up, and tell them personally how amazing it was for them to have access to such high quality fresh food that they've never been able to afford.

So it's really amazing.

We know that people know how to cook. We know that people want fresh foods. It's just really difficult to purchase it and to afford it. We want to increase economic opportunities for local farmers. Obviously, that's our mission. So we want to make sure that there's opportunities for farmers to sell into the mobile grocery store. And we want to demonstrate to Rockford and to private businesses and corporations that brick and mortar grocery stores are financially sustainable in Rockford's low income and food insecure neighborhoods. Because the reality is, people need food everywhere, and we want people to invest. And so we will be collecting a lot of data, sales data, with the mobile grocery store that we can then present to the city of Rockford. We can present to corporations that say, look at the sales that we're having in this area. And this area is worthy of a euro investment to put a brick and mortar grocery store So our intention is not to compete with brick and mortar grocery stores. It's to work in collaboration and be proof of concept that everyone wants fresh food all across our community. And the beauty of the mobile grocery store is that we've got 10 stops chosen right now. And if a grocery store gets built in that neighborhood, we can just move it down the road, right?

So it's mobile.

Let's think big, and let's have some big aspirations. If Rockford's food insecurity crisis starts to wane, we can take a mobile grocery store to other communities outside of Rockford, right? So we want this to lead to something bigger, right? And we want it to be a proof of concept so that it's not to compete with our grocery stores.

It's to encourage more and more to come in.

So I want to turn it over to Montez real quick to talk more specifically just about the grocery store. And then we'll be open for questions. And I realize that I don't know what time these meetings end, but it is after an hour. So we'll wrap it up.

So then that's my cue to be very quick. Good evening, everyone. And thank you again for inviting us to come and speak before you all today. My name is Montez Feliz, and I serve as the mobile grocery store coordinator. for farmers rising It's always an amazing opportunity to work alongside one of the best bosses and colleagues and so anytime I get to speak with I'm getting paid later Alderman Bell briefly touched on the conception of this mobile grocery store initiative, but it's just important to To remind folks that before the summit that the Northern Illinois Center for Nonprofit, or NICNI for short, convened a summit in the summer of 2024. The idea stemmed from the late, former late George Scott, who is the former president of the Rockford NAACP chapter. Before his passing, there were a bunch of ideas and aspirations that he had, one being the MOBA grocery store, particularly on the west side, as unfortunately has been underserved and overlooked for far too long. not having adequate health care services, along with grocery services that provide accessibility for folks that might not have any sort of transportation. And so shortly after his passing, there were a lot of great leaders, including Alderman Bell, that wanted to do something with it. They didn't want his legacy to end And so in 2024, NICNI convened a summit with over 75 organizations and stakeholders to address Many issues, but one of the sole issues was addressing food insecurity. As we know that the city has provided a framework, which again, as Alderman Bell mentioned earlier, has been provided to you all, that basically says that the city of Rockford is aware that we have areas in our community that are food insecure. And so we are calling upon the city and our residents to try to find a solution. And so out of this summit in 2024, a task force, more formally the Food Insecurity Task Force, which meets every once a month for about maybe an hour, a little bit longer. Yeah. where we talk about how we can address food insecurity. At the time at which I joined, which is almost seven months, it's been some of the most amazing seven months of my life, getting to just really engage with this initiative, sitting across the aisle with the mayor and have these conversations about how we can provide more food access to our neighborhoods that need it most. And three is our deliverable. So out of the conversations, out of the data that's been conducted through this Food and Security Task Force, the end result was the mobile grocery store, as we've seen success in various other cities, from St. Louis metro market to the Milwaukee It's slipping my mind what their name is called. But there is also a mobile market in Milwaukee. I do briefly want to talk about some of the importance and stats of a number sky for me. Well, the city tells us our public data tells us that 15.8% of Winnebago County residents are food insecure. So that's roughly one in six of our neighbors and 20% of our youth. have faced some sort of food insecurity as well, versus the state average of 11.3%. So that is nearly double. I'm a big brother. I'm someone who has nine siblings. I'm the oldest out of all of them. I think about that. When we look at that number, one in six for adults, that's one in four for children. I think about one of my siblings going home and not being fed. And I know that that is the harsh reality for many other children and families throughout this community. Some of our own data that we've conducted before presenting this before the city found that 98% of residents would shop at a mobile grocery store if one was readily available to them. 84% have said that they face difficult or worse grocery access today. And 83% say that they struggle to regularly access affordable fresh food. That fourth point, that 84% face difficult or worse grocery access, that is in relation to the entire year. More specifically, that fifth point addresses just in general. It's a little bit about what the mobile grocery store is and is not. It will provide fresh produce, meats, dairy, eggs, frozen foods, and everyday staples to a neighborhood near you. It will accept a variety of payments, same payment options that your typical Walmart or Aldi's would accept. but includes EBT, LINC, WIC, cash, and any sort of card, physical cards will be accepted. But what's unique about us is we will be factoring in a subsidized price so that we can provide a reduction for our customers. The mobile grocery store itself will be fully ADA accessible. So we are currently in the process. There have been some concept photos. And in the presentation, I will show you some of our concept photos that we have. But it was important for us to make sure that this is truly accessible. So that includes creating a ramp for both entry and exit way. So folks that might have mobility issues feel a little bit at ease knowing that we are keeping everyone truly in mind throughout this process. And as Jackie has mentioned earlier, we have set on 10 initial stops, two hours per stop, same place, same time. every week but what's amazing is that we are mobile and so if a grocery store were to open up at any of these 10 spots that helps us address food insecurity one stop at a time but we are able to go to an alternative location if need be What this initiative is not is it is not a food pantry. We want to be very clear that we are not in competition with any food pantries here locally. In fact, we have been able to work alongside food pantries such as the Northern Illinois Food Bank, where much of the surveys that have been conducted have been in their facilities and their buildings. And so they've been a great partner to work alongside. And as we seek to expand, we will be working alongside these pantries and not in competition of. And as promised, these beautiful concept photos, of course, subject to change. So I wish I could make it a little bit bigger, but I can make sure that this is provided to you in a prettier format. But as you can see, the exterior shows our collaboration to, of course, Farmers Rising. The nonprofit city center market is the for-profit vendor. We are in the midst of our fundraising. public fundraising efforts. And so we, as the donors, stakeholders donate, depending on the sponsorship packet, they too could be on our mobile grocery store trailer in some capacity. Then the interior, which I always think is beautiful, shows what a walkthrough of the mobile grocery store, what it could look like. I failed to include a link to the Milwaukee mobile grocery store. It shows just a better visual than that of concept photos. But just wanted to be able to provide just a glimpse, as I know I myself am a visual person. With that, we will open it up to questions. And again, truly thank you for being invited.

Is this happening right now? The mobile grocery store?

Yeah, so we received the initial funding from the city of Rockford, right? So they have invested, or you have invested, I should say, $622,000 over three years. So the contract is signed with the city, and then when the funds are transferred to Farmer's Rising, we have a vendor lined up who is ready to construct the trailer for us. And so then when we make a down payment, then they'll get to work on the trailer. So we anticipate it should be up and running between three to six months from the date of a down payment.

I've seen the times you put the two stops, same place. Will it assist with, I know traditionally, like a lot of the food pantries are like Tuesday and Thursday, one to four. Is it going to assist as far as like offsetting that? So like people that work maybe later in the day, access to them?

Yeah, that was part of the survey. We asked people, like, what time of day works better for them. It seems like afternoons were better than mornings, for example. And so, like, I've never hired a trucker before. I've been hiring a trucker, everybody, to drive. Send me some of the CDL license to drive this thing around, right? So, like, it's going to be a whole adventure for us.

Yeah. Thankfully, I don't have my CDL. Otherwise, I probably would have been asked.

But I think part of the hiring process will be flexibility within the employees and creating a schedule that works for both work-life balance as well as for individuals who need to shop there. So if we might be implementing afternoon evenings, so an afternoon stop, a break, and an evening stop, possibility um and and i will say that our year one we have it set up as a pilot here to test that out that'd be great and so we're we're implementing this year one as a lot of data collection we know we're making our best guess. And so we're trying to be very flexible on our end. And sometimes that's hard for the public, right? Like sometimes that gives a bad impression of like, oh, they said they're gonna be here every Tuesday morning, now they're coming every Tuesday afternoon or whatever. But also we wanna be able to serve them, you know, be there at the best time to serve the most amount of people, et cetera, be in the right spots, all of that. And so we will be making adjustments a lot until we really kind of figure out the systems.

Yeah, I think that's good, because I know that a lot of people, I know their availability is going to be coming weekends or later in the evening, because when kids get out of school, they're not going to be there doing bus hours, of course, in the morning or picking up kids at the end of the night. How did you guys decide on the 10 neighborhoods? Or is it 10 different neighborhoods? Or are they located in the same place? I don't know if you use food insecurity data or?

Yes, good question. So we actually partnered with Northern Illinois Food Bank on choosing the slots. So they have a lot of data on who is most needed in the city of Rockford. And so they identify kind of the big picture neighborhoods. And then we also kind of tested like, for example, we'll say kind of South Main 15th Street area. Well, you know, there's, why don't you keep them right there? So like we also kind of plugged in where are the existing grocery stores to not compete with them and pick locations that are like at least a mile away so that people who have problems with access to transportation can get food delivered to them. We also recognize that no one's going to get all of their grocery needs filled by a two-hour stop at a grocery store. So there's still going to be a need to access other grocery stores, access other types of facilities to get basic needs met. And so that's where the focus on the fresh food is coming in as well. We want to make sure that they have access to affordable, fresh food. And so subsidizing the cost of vegetables, maize, dairies, things like that that are fresh that can help improve their diet. Lowering those costs, because oftentimes, foods and vegetables are at sort of higher costs than other grocery stores.

Would they have to supply their own bags? Or would they be, I don't know, if it's recyclable given?

We're going to make some reusable bags as part of like sponsor levels. You know, so we're kind of developing that right now. I'm guessing that we'll also probably use plastic bags for people to take their groceries. We're also investigating systems for online ordering, local ordering, so people can pre-order their groceries and then they know that we're coming in at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday where we can deliver, especially to like housing authority community. you know, centers, like high-rise buildings, things like that. We can partner with them and like deliver pre-ordered groceries. And so we're kind of in that in-between phase right now. Like it was a big push to get funding, and now we're like doing a lot of behind-the-scenes systems building kind of thing to like dial in like how to invest for people. What do we even have?

Do you know what Milwaukee's doing? I mean, their weather is very, very similar to us. What are they doing during the winter time? Like, how is that gonna affect this service? I think they're just rollin'. I mean, they're rollin', you know? I like that. She said, they're just rollin'. We're gonna roll, too. Yeah, I know, that's right. They're rollin' around, yeah.

And we're gonna hope that our snow plows are snow plows. I was gonna say that.

We're gonna tell the city the routing to make sure everybody on these streets that the snow plows done.

You know, we got the city now on a speed dial.

Right.

So the commissioner actually brought up something interesting, and when you said we're just going to roll with it, I was thinking more of, you were selling fresh produce. And obviously in the winter, that's going to look a little different. So that kind of leads into my question about the source of the food. Is this all coming from local farmers? And then what happens in the winter?

No. So this is a food access initiative first, and a local food access opportunity second. So it's first of all having fresh food available to people. That's where City Center Market is coming in. So their contracts with their suppliers and distributors will be supplied and loaded. So they actually are putting an employee on the truck every day when it rolls out. And they will be loading food onto the mobile grocery store every day and unloading it into their coolers at night and providing those lunches. So we'll be buying from wherever Shooks gets their food from also. And then trying to incorporate more and more local food as much as we can.

And what will those prices look like? I mean, what does it look like in Milwaukee? How do you compare, for example, what you'd get on the trailer or the truck compared to what you'd see at, say, a La Chiquita or whatever?

Yeah, so that's a great question. So that's part of our fundraising campaign, right? So it's really important for us to bring in the private dollars to support the food subsidy. And Milwaukee has seen varying levels of food subsidy due to their access to funding and support of the campaign. And so I think that they started out with, I think the prices were over 25% from market value at a grocery store. but they've had to adjust that at times, like only 10% lower maybe in different times if they've had a reduction in funding. And so I think that's kind of our message both to everyone here tonight as well as to the broader community of like we need partnership and support in order to lower, and our aspiration is to be at the same price or lower than prices at Walmart or Aldi's. So we want to be competitive with the most competitive brochures and have a lower price than what they are offering because we're not really solving any, I mean we might be solving a transportation problem but we're not solving an affordability access problem completely if our prices are too high.

Are you guys stationed, will it be at a parking lot or?

Yeah, so that's the other stop limitation is that we need to have a place that's big enough for a truck and a big trailer to pull through. So, for example, there's been a few RHA communities that we've wanted to serve, but there's not enough space for us to pull in or we might be blocking traffic or blocking a parking lot or something. And so that's kind of where we've been exploring a little bit, like the mobile ordering option where we can deliver to there, but we wouldn't necessarily be pulling up and staying there for people at home.

Oh, so someone would go online, place the order, and then you would take them the groceries? Correct. Got it.

That's great.

Okay.

So we are limited in that, and I actually did a... I drove around Rockford all day. We identified the big picture neighborhoods that need services, and I truly just spent a couple hours driving around being like, is this parking lot big enough for us? Is this close to a church? Is it close to a community center? Is it close to where people are? Is it close to a school? Things like that. And so we've had a kind of reality test, and that's honestly those 10 spots that we've chosen right now. We've recognized that, yes, they could accommodate us, right? They could accommodate just the physical nature of the store.

So did you have to get in contract with people that owned the parking lots? Or these are parking lots the city owned, and they're like...

So there's some conversations in our future that we've had in some places.

I would just add a majority of the stops and happy to provide those 10 stops to you all. A majority of them are public parking locations, corridor locations. It's pretty accessible, of course. I say that it's easier said than done. I mean, we are looking at a 48-foot to 53-foot semi-trailer. So it's not your typical vehicle on the road. But we are being very mindful of where we can park. But then also the 10 locations are purely stemmed from the research and survey data that we've conducted from our families and our neighbors.

And these are currently 10 locations around different areas of town, or are we isolated? OK, so they're everywhere.

Yeah, I wouldn't say not everywhere. I would say focused on the west side and the southeast side of Harvard. So the majority are west side. And then I would say there's two or three stops that are on the southeast side. So one of which is Black Hawk Boards, one is Northern Illinois Food Bank. So we also have intentions of partnering with Rock River Valley Country and Northern Illinois Food Bank, neighborhood department. Like, they want us to set up, and so when people can first access food in the pantry for free, and then whatever ingredients they're missing, they can shop on the move. Oh, that's great. That's great. That's great. So things like that. So I think we've got... Oh, and Petrie's Gateway is the other place. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah, to kind of get to where you were talking about, like, some of the Broadway kind of area over there. So Petrie's Gateway is the other spot.

Do we get their contact information?

You can very easily.

I would love to email you.

Great. That would be great. Please reach out with any questions, ideas, with need, with neighborhoods that need service, all of that. Ideas for corporations that might want to sponsor this. Yeah, we're really, really thankful to the city to provide this initial investment because it enables us to go out now to kind of the corporations of the community and say, like, the city's committed, we're committed, the city center market's committed, can you help us, like, make sure that this is a reality for the city of Procter and make sure that the food is affordable. And there's a dignity piece to it. People want to be able to buy their food. Everybody wants to be able to eat free food. And we're so blessed to have as many pantries as we do in the city of Rockford. And also people want to be able to buy their food for their families and feel proud of themselves for that. And so we can help with that. We shouldn't have to shop for your groceries at a dollar general. We should have access to real food. That's all.

Commissioner Bravo, did you have a question? No, I was just gonna say thank you, Jackie. Thank you, Montel, for presenting and giving us that information. Commissioners, any other questions?

Thank you all, we appreciate you so much. Thank you, it was very good. Oh, thank you. All right, commissioners, moving on to unfinished business. Our biannual report, we need to do approval for it. I believe that it was emailed to all of us prior to this, and it's also attached. So I'll ask for a motion to move our biannual report. So moved. First motion by Eric. Second. Second. Any opposes? All right, so moved. All right, next up, we will talk about the Community Relations Commission Ordinance Revision, updated by Makayla Harris.

some changes to the ordinance and worked on it.

I spoke with the legal director on what process we would need to go through to amend the ordinance, and she provided some really good feedback that I wanted to share with you all that I don't think we would need to amend the ordinance. So in section 11-41, item G, says we added at least one member of the Commission shall be between the ages of 18 and 24 at the time of appointment to ensure youth perspectives are represented in the work of the Commission she recommended that maybe we do that in practice but not amend the ordinance the reason why would be we could be boxing ourselves in it can be very challenging at times to appoint people to the Commission so I had Mentioned maybe an SOP or something like that for us because I know the Commission is trying to establish Certain parameters that we're working in, you know, like receiving memos for resignations like, you know just maybe formalizing our processes a little bit more and that was the intent behind this and So maybe we would add it there rather than amending the ordinance and boxing ourselves in. So she made that recommendation. The next recommendation for the other change was under section 11-42, item C. In addition to appointed membership, the commission may support youth advisory and mentorship opportunities that allow young residents to learn from and contribute to the work of the commission. She says that that falls within the purview of the ordinance and the establishment of the commission, so we don't need to amend the ordinance to be able to do that. And then the last one was changing from an annual report to a biannual report. She read the ordinance as we can submit, it's a minimum of one report a year. So if we would like to submit more reports, again, that's within our purview to be able to do that. So no need to amend the ordinance to be able to do that. so i just wanted to share that with you all um if everybody is okay with that we would keep the ordinance as is and um maybe i believe there's some procedures that we have and maybe updating those procedures to add these items in rather than amending the formal ordinance any questions commissioners thank you all right we will move on to

Our commissioner meetings with the aldermen and discussions. Commissioner Bravo, did you have your hand up first? Oh, okay, perfect, okay.

So we met with Frank Beach, 10th Ward, Gina Meeks, 12th Ward, and Gabrielle Torina, 5th Ward. So it was very good to get to know them. I mean, just to talk with them and just to see what's on their heart. And the major thing is mental health. housing, senior living, those types of things. So it was very interesting that each of them have a certain, just like Tamar, other man Tamar, he has a focus on food security. And I see that Meeks and Tarina were about mental health. And I know that we have heard the panel as well. And I made some, I'm gonna make some suggestions of people that I know that probably they can contact to do some little community things there in their ward. And so that's why I think that was a good communication piece that if we're watching all these panels, and then here's some aldermen that are dealing with that in their ward, that that's probably a way that we could say, well, hey, you know, these people, this person came and they're dealing, like there was one in particular that she deals with youth on mental health. And I know that Alderman Beach said that about redefining mental health. with the young people, because some of it's trauma and things like that. So this person is a really good resource for them. So had we not had these conversations, we don't know what the other person knows or don't know. So I think we need to take more advantage of the panels that come to even look at these areas. And through that, it provoked me to find out what ward I'm in. So I'm on ward one, and then, so I was like, I wouldn't even thought about thinking like that until I, you know, we were talking with the aldermen. They were very, very open, very passionate for their ward, and it was just a pleasure to just exchange conversations with them, find out what the struggles are in each ward.

Were there any recommendations of how we can assist as a commission?

No.

Yeah, no. I just wanted to amplify what the commissioner said and then also say that it was just personally really interesting to get to know the alderman on a level that we haven't had an opportunity to, and just to kind of have that back and forth. And one thing that Alderman Beach had said is that he would like to see more flexibility in some of the partnerships that the city has access to. and I don't know that they use the word silo that's my word but but I think they were just very eager to sort of expand their contacts beyond city staff and and just Because they were sensitive to the idea that there shouldn't be duplication, right? That we have some partners out there that are offering really great services to the citizens and that the city should partner more often rather than, you know. So anyway, I just really enjoyed meeting with them.

Hustle, hustle. Was there any other reports of another group that, I believe, was it someone else that had a round table and ours got rescheduled?

What's that?

The third one hasn't been rescheduled. Oh, OK. Yeah. OK.

I could follow up, though. OK. Perfect.

I wasn't here last month. Ended up having a situation happen here. But I went to Paquilla? Did I say Paquilla?

Paquilla.

I was hoping I got it right.

We met with Prunty, what is it, Logman, and Garneth? Garneth. Garneth. And I think very similar to what you guys have shared, I think what I did like, she asked a great question, just asking them to rank from one to five, their priorities. And I think that kind of opened, not to say a floodgate, but it was a great conversation to kind of find out, are we even aligned with what the aldermen feel? So for example, we asked them about housing crisis, workforce development. What was the other one we asked about?

Well, we talked a lot about just the day-to-day issues. The day-to-day. Yeah. Like, just more basic things. Correct. Housing repair. Yeah. Lawn maintenance. Things of that nature.

There was a difference from what we kind of seen we discuss here versus what they thought. Because every day it's like, to be honest, I'm getting blown up with people arguing in the neighborhood about the smallest little things. My day involves that. And those are my priorities. And what I will say, they were all aligned on their top priority was safety for their community. But that was eye-opening to see because you're like, oh, what about, you're like, nope, I'm worried about this guy, this person arguing about why someone had a clothing line up all week and how to get it done or someone not able to mow their lawn. But one thing I did take away from it was the fact that the neighborhoods need something where there's communication, where people can get along. You know that you might not know someone's story, why they might not know. mowed their lawn because this person works three to four jobs, or they might be a senior citizen, or they might not have access to a lawnmower. There is a disconnect with people just being kind in some of the communities. And the alderman's like, I can't do that by myself. I can't mimic that. And I was asking the questions like, what do you think we can do more of? And I had brought up social media to them. And they were like, a lot of them didn't have a social media presence. And I understand why, because you would just get blown up on social media, and people would just tag you and stuff. But I was telling them, maybe we should show a video of what a good neighbor looks like in Rockford, or celebrate a story. I told them about my fence. I don't know if you remember, just recently, there was a tornado that came by Freeport, over in the northwest side. we kind of got hit with a tornado too, even though it wasn't physically there. My entire fence blew over. And my neighbor, who I'd never met from behind the house, he came and put it up. He was like, you have a brand new baby. I was like, I just feel bad. And I'm like, I don't even know your name. I feel so bad.

So you get to know him.

Right. But that would be a great story, somebody being like, someone just taking initiative to help a person out. Because clearly he's been watching me. He knew I was pregnant. He knew I had a baby recently. He knew a lot about me just because he lives behind my house. And somebody else might have found that creepy and was like, well, no, he put my face back up. But I was telling them that. And they were like, oh, that sounds like a really good idea. But a lot of them, some of them shied away kind of from the technology piece. And that may be somewhere we can fill in the gap for us.

It's a thought.

It sounds like it was very informative. It was. It was a great meeting. That'll move us into our new business with our strategic planning meeting that we need to come to. date and selection and discussions. And if you, I'm just gonna throw this question out to each and every one of you since you have those that have had round tables and we have sat and had discussions. I'm not sure if you've had Did we have this in advance, the action plans? I don't know the action plan. Yeah. Okay. So even looking through this and looking at some of the stuff that you have already heard from the actual aldermen, Maybe there is something that we need to add on, just because I wouldn't have known that that was their day-to-day. I mean, like you said, there's a lot that has been discussed that we probably have not even addressed. But looking at what their day-to-day is and what we are thinking as a commission, is there some other things that we might be able to put on for our next upcoming year? So that is something that we might even want to think about. But as we look at the action plan coming up with a date, right? Correct?

Yes, and speaking of action plans, strategic planning, what you just shared, Johnson, gave me an idea, and it was one of the ideas I'd had a while back, like working through the commission and things that we can collaborate on and do and things like that. Block parties. Working with the aldermen. If the issue that they're facing in their wards are conflicts right between residents how do we get people to resolve conflict we bring them together we celebrate we have a good time we we come to a communal space um so maybe it's exploring block parties with the different aldermen all aldermen doesn't have to do it but for the aldermen that are interested that are maybe experiencing those problems a little bit more in their ward maybe that's an option we could do so um Speaking of strategic planning, those are the types of things, again, that we would do in our strategic planning is what we could build for our 2027 year. So I wanted to talk about dates. I was... hopeful that maybe we could look at some time in October or early November for a strategic planning because I'd like to have something ready to start January for 2027 so I don't know do we want to look at calendars now do you want me to select a couple of days and send it out to the group again do we want a Saturday again or do we want to do it maybe are we meet on a thursday maybe we do meet at three o'clock on a thursday and go till seven instead of meeting on a saturday from eight to noon so what what are your preferences for those times this will be a strategic clinic meeting yes okay yeah it would be in addition to our regular monthly meeting unless honestly let me look here um i mean we could use our november meeting if we wanted to do that and um still Right now, all we have on there are director updates, but those can easily be shuffled around. I haven't confirmed those. So we could either do it in place of our regular meeting, or we could do it in addition to. So what would you like to do? Do we want to do it... On a Saturday in addition to our regular meeting or on another Thursday in addition to or replace our regular meeting?

I think for me, I would say replace the November meeting with that.

Okay.

I would agree.

Agreed. I agree.

Okay.

When would the November meeting be?

It's on the second Thursday. Let me, I can tell you here. The 12th.

I'll be in Cuba.

You'll be in Cuba.

Yeah, I'm starting a revolution.

Did I say that?

Not really. Yeah, I won't be here. Does it matter if I'm here?

Well, we could do October as well. October, all we have is our workforce development roundtable, but I don't believe we've begun planning that at all. So would October work for everybody better? What's the date in October? October is going to be the 8th. Sounds good to me. Is that the date? Like 3 instead of, we would meet at like 3 o'clock. No.

Oh, just be in, replace the regular meeting.

It would replace it, but we would need to meet at 3 o'clock that day. Yeah, because it would go 3 to 7 would be, like still do a four hour window. Okay. Is that okay for everyone? Yes. Okay.

Can we, do we have food lined up or?

I'll make sure we have something. I have to eat. Yes, me too. I tell my husband I'm like a toddler. I need to eat and I need sleep.

When it comes to this action plan, if there's something that I want to... Well, maybe that'll be done in this planning meeting. Yes.

But if there's something you'd like to add to it, email us. We can get it on the agenda. I would love to hear from you guys about things that you want in our action plan. So if there's something you want, somebody you think would be good to talk to the commission... Absolutely. Send that to me and Larry, and we will add it to our action plan and get it on the agenda.

Yeah, I do. Because one thing we took away, too, we made a note about, we talked about block parties. And I was like, oh, and I get it. They're like, where am I getting this time to plan a block party? I'm like, you know what? You're right. It's a lot that goes into that. They were like, if I had assistance, they were like, I can get the people there, but I can't plan it. And I wanted to add something on here about that, like a group that would assist with that or a volunteer group that would be open to supporting a block party in the neighborhood or wherever. That's what I was thinking about. But I can talk about it at the other meeting.

Yeah, no, I think that that would be great. We can even do subcommittees for the commission. So if there's a group that feels like this is what I want to do, they could be a subcommittee and then help the aldermen plan the black parties too. Yep.

Any more comments about the strategic plan or any other? No? All right. All right, next we are at commissioner reports. I will start. I don't have a report, but I do want to say thank you to Eric once again. Eric has definitely sat in the seat as long as I have, and we have seen a lot of change in this last year. So I just want to thank you for all that you have done. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. Any other reports?

What were we clapping for?

Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Eric.

Oh, OK. So Mary Jude and I met with, I think I told everybody that we're going to meet with Dr. Martel at the Winnebago County Health Department. And we did. And they have a great team working supportive housing. So we're continuing that. They're almost at the construction phase. They're looking at zoning, I believe is the next hurdle. So anyway, we'll continue to attend those meetings and we offered our collaboration with them if there's anything that they need from us. If we can deliver we will so we want to help them And I agree I do if there's anything that we can definitely do as a commission I would definitely I have a real quick question about the work that you two are doing.

Forgive me if I have forgotten this or skipped over it, but what kind of work are you doing to find out whether some of the innovations that you're suggesting or that you've researched How are you connecting with housing, our city housing staff, the people in the departments to find out what they may be doing in those areas to just kind of make sure, again, going back to kind of the silo comment, right?

Well, they have a team of 10. They have a team of 10 people working on supportive housing, whether it's tiny homes or the concept that is used in Minnesota. But they have a team of 10 people working on it. So I think that they have at least they're working through some things with the city.

I think that's where their next step is, actually, and I thought I had my notes with me that they wanted to have someone from the city come in and talk with them specifically about zoning and not looking at cross-purposes with any other initiatives that are currently in place or in the works. You're talking about the county, right? That's right.

OK. I was talking about your kind of working group. The two of you have a working group, and you're researching some of these innovations like Avivo. And I'm just curious about, have you reached out to, and I don't know who's in charge of the 10 people you were talking about, but just to kind of make sure that we're suggesting things that are actually realistic for the city to do, or that maybe duplicate things the city's already doing. Does that make sense?

Yes, so I think that to your point, so we had looked at Olivo Village and so on and so forth, and then you found out that this was happening already at the health department, which is why we went to the meeting to hear about That, so that we weren't spinning our wheels, we realized this was already happening, how can we collaborate together? And so that was, I think in lieu of what we were talking about, it was can we just, they were already further ahead than we were. Does that make sense? Like, we're not going to, felt kind of like we would be reinventing the wheel that they have already started to invent yeah yeah they are going to bring in i believe city staff to talk about zoning and what's already in the works so that they can understand better yeah yeah yeah my interest is just in kind of advocating for more for for a collaborative approach and making sure that city staff is actually

that we're having an ongoing conversation with city staff to make sure that our research is aligned with what they may or may not already be doing and what the chances are that that's practical or pragmatic for the city to do.

And I believe when zoning did come, he did say that there were a lot of different initiatives that were being supported right now. So I agree. Instead of recreating the wheel, I think joining on with them is definitely a great effort.

And I think the best thing that has come from the meeting with the elders and with this sort of meeting is we're, you know, I think we've talked a lot about how we've listened so much and also been sort of unaware of what's happening beyond the things that we think need to be responded to. But I think the best part of it is getting away from that siloing, that that hopefully we can be more collaborative across the board and not just be kind of sitting here surmising what might be helpful. So, yeah.

I even noticed that the three aldermen that we were with, they So it was good talking to each other. You could see that they were talking and so we, you know, we, I remember, I know all the members, we said we used to go out to eat after council meetings sometimes and how there was such a collaboration with all of them. But just sitting in the room with them, I was just amazed how they were talking with each other and feeling like, wow, I missed this kind of thing. So I thought it was great. Even though we didn't get a lot going, what we can help them with, they just told us the struggles that they were having. So that just gave me the mind of the panels. What can we grab from those panels to help them?

I agree. One thing I will ask, though, as a commission, as we're moving forward, to be able to close some of the things out that we've already started. As we just said, we will keep doing roundtables and roundtables. Are there things, as we think about the strategic plan and as we move forward, that we close some of the things out, like Commissioner Garwick and Please pronounce your last name As we as we know now that there that's being worked on and we don't want to continue to go on when there's something else that we know that we can be a service to so as we prepare for the strategic strategic plans, I think those are some of the things that we need to think about what's what's our next and what's our why for the next upcoming year if And I just think that that would be a great service to our community.

I might add to I've developed a new reporting type mechanism that I'd like to roll out with you all at the October strategic planning. And it's going to really mimic more of like a state report. I don't know if you are familiar with those with grants or anything like that, but it's a goal, the objectives, deliverables, and what we've accomplished in this time period. So if we're reporting biannually, and I've got the formatting all laid out, but I'd like to present that to the group, see what type of tweaking that we can do. But for example, for the housing, this is what our goal was, this is what we've heard, and we've identified that there's this agency, this agency already doing this work, if there's any additional recommendations, and then what we would do is we'd mark that item complete on that report and then start moving on to other things. And I think having the strategic planning is also going to help us kind of visualize that a little bit better and formalize what it is that we need to do going forward and close those things out as well.

Oh, go ahead, Commissioner Johnson.

So I had posted a video where I shared a link from our meetings. I started to share them on my Facebook. And I posted one about you are free to come or if you know someone that's 18 to 24 that would like to join this. I had 120 people respond, 5,000 views. And so I had a question about how do I even get them to respond? I didn't even know the process after I realized it. How did I get to, do I just start sending their names or?

Send me their name and their resume. You can send their name, just their letter of interest maybe. And if they have a resume, that'd be great. And then I can get that to, not Tom, our new acting mayor, Ms. Neal.

And then also to go off of what, If they wanna become a speaker, please sign up. If there's something that they would like to discuss, to go on the website and sign up to be a speaker.

Okay. Yeah, I'll wait to, I'm trying to not get excited. I'm gonna wait to the planning meeting.

Okay.

But I would love to put some of the stuff that we accomplished So then we create something to actually show what was implemented, what's the resource that we found, or tell a story about whatever's happening that's already been done. Because like you said, people are working in silos. We don't even know this process is happening, or what 10 stops they're going to be using. Because we are addressing it, but just sometimes it's limited who gets the information.

All right. Well, commissioners, it has brought us to adjournment. I would like to ask who would like to move for our adjournment.

So moved.

Can I get a second?

So moved.