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About Us
Top Box is a non-profit organization that is driven by our mission: to provide food-insecure communities in Chicago with equal access to healthy foods. It seems pretty basic that all people should have access to fresh fruit, vegetables and meats but unfortunately that is not the case. Here in Chicago, many neighborhoods are underserved by traditional grocery stores and lack in healthy eating options. Top Box sources high-quality, affordable, fresh produce and foods, and offers them for purchase at up to 50% off their retail equivalents. Top Box gives our food-insecure neighbors the choice to eat healthy at an affordable price and to stretch their budget dollars. Top Box is community supported; once a month, with the help of dedicated volunteers, we deliver our food boxes to customers through a partner network of local churches, schools, community centers, senior and public housing. We believe that eating better foods helps create better communities.
What We Would Do
Numbers we are proud of: Since our first delivery in May 2012, 250 volunteers have distributed 25,000 food boxes which translates into over 300,000 pounds of food or 411,000 meals to underserved communities. But with $50,000 dollars, Oh the neighborhoods we could go! Today we rent a refrigerated truck and the high cost limits Top Box to once a month deliveries, dictates our routes and how many stops we can make in a day. The generous cash prize offered by Zipcar will allow Top Box to buy our very own refrigerated delivery truck. Owning a truck will give us the freedom to create a new road map, delivering nutritious foods into more neighborhoods, more often. Now, let’s talk about those Zipcar credits. The Top Box organization runs on volunteers. In fact, our staff includes three paid employees; volunteers play an important role with community outreach and deliveries. In a big city like Chicago not everyone owns a car; we have volunteers who would love to help but reliable transportation is their roadblock. Zipcar credits will increase our volunteer program capacity. Zipcars will put more volunteers on the road; driving awareness about the Top Box program; resulting in getting more fresh foods out into the community. We will create ZiPooling, a program that increases volunteer participation on delivery days by allowing volunteers to travel together in Zipcars to multiple scheduled delivery stops. Lastly, with money that we have left over from the purchase of the truck, (and we have been drooling over pictures of refrigerated trucks); will be put towards training our culinary volunteers to teach cooking classes in our targeted communities. It is great to have access to fresh fruits and veggies but it’s important to know how to prepare them too! Better Food. Better Communities.
