Formerly homeless Navy veteran receives $80K to expand healthy food delivery

(Tribune Information Provider) — Dion Dawson’s early daily life could have been stuffed with poverty, hardship and bouts with homelessness, but his last two many years have been almost nothing brief of meteoric.

In early 2020, Dawson was living in his auto and functioning overnights at an Amazon facility to support many household members pay charges in the midst of a pandemic. But by the end of 2021, adhering to the demise of George Floyd, he experienced began a nonprofit aimed at getting rid of meals insecurity and acquired general public recognition in his initiatives to give an oasis in a food items desert.

This thirty day period, Dawson, 34, was just one of 18 people from close to the world to be selected for the remarkably coveted Echoing Environmentally friendly fellowship, which will aid fund his initiatives: Challenge Dream Fridge, a local community refrigerator in the heart of Englewood where inhabitants obtain clean fruit and veggies stocked daily, and Aspiration Deliveries, which delivers totally free food stuff to residences across the city and suburbs.

“I’ve been blessed to be capable to live presently in the second,” Dawson informed the Tribune. “When you arrive from a background where your household has struggled, the place you have to be concerned about the place your subsequent meal will come from, it feels fantastic to actually stay in that second and be able to relish in the truth that day-to-day operations are protected.”

Echoing Eco-friendly is a company backed nonprofit that identifies long term leaders who have demonstrated daring or revolutionary challenge resolving in matters ranging from wellness, human rights, poverty and racial justice. Former First Lady Michelle Obama was a fellow in 1991.

Eco-friendly fellows acquire an $80,000 stipend about 18 months and Dawson explained he would use his new funding to broaden his foods shipping and delivery service, which has attained as much north as Evanston and west as Schiller Park. He designs to extend throughout Cook County. He’s seeking towards greater goals, with each and every million pounds elevated currently being applied to feed 1,000 families in a 50-mile radius.

“Echoing Environmentally friendly listened to me, listened to my strategies on where by I imagine we have the ideal impact in switching the narrative in foods insecurity,” he explained, “and this is about finding to the root of the problem and where foodstuff insecurity is anywhere, not just in Englewood.”

The matter of food items insecurity has a deep particular resonance for Dawson, the youngest of 4 sons elevated on the streets of Englewood by their solitary mom. He lived considerably of his younger existence in homelessness as his mom struggled with material abuse. Even now, homelessness didn’t cease Dawson from finishing faculty, graduating from Holmes Elementary and Gage Park High schools.

Following returning from a 6-calendar year stint in the U.S. Navy, Dawson found himself homeless once again, dwelling in his automobile, expressing he experienced a really hard transition back to civilian everyday living.

Dawson’s lifetime took an surprising detour in May 2020 following the death of George Floyd. A local community member requested Dawson to do anything for his community in recognition of Juneteenth, an African-American holiday that acquired common help following Floyd’s demise at the palms of Minneapolis police. “I said I’m heading to feed 100 family members,” Dawson recalled.

What adopted was a whirlwind that involved two prosperous crowdfunding strategies to obtain clean fruits and vegetables for people and the start off of his possess nonprofit, Dion’s Chicago Aspiration. That identical 12 months, Dawson and his wife had been astonished by converse show Ellen DeGeneres with a $25,000 test on her clearly show for his group function.

Dawson said a true level of delight is that his program has grown from 30 homes to 250 and that his organization of 5 owns its shipping and delivery autos and pays the crew a residing wage.

Dawson explained he stays fully commited to feeding individuals “no make a difference wherever they are. No subject if they are in Streeterville, Englewood, West Pullman. Foodstuff insecurity does not glimpse like a selected individual and it doesn’t appear in a sure community.”

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