Chicago Sun-Times: All posts by Mariah Rush

Yellow Banana sued after $350K of unpaid bills, suit says

2023-12-08T13:58:34.679-06:00

A shopper bags groceries Wednesday at one of the Save A Lots that Yellow Banana operates on the South Side.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

While Chicagoans wait for Ohio-based Yellow Banana to open its Save A Lot locations a year after receiving City Council approval, the company has run into legal headwinds in its home state and recently sold its grocery stores in Florida.

A lawsuit filed Oct. 23 in federal district court of Ohio by produce distributor Sanson Produce said Yellow Banana failed to pay the company, racking up $356,720 for fresh fruits and vegetables sold from June to September and purchased on credit. It’s unclear which Yellow Banana stores it supplied. Ohio-based Sanson doesn’t distribute in Illinois, the company told the Sun-Times.

Sanson requested damages and equitable relief. The suit was dismissed Monday by Sanson. The company and its attorney declined to comment, or say if a settlement was reached. A spokesperson for Yellow Banana said the company doesn’t comment on litigation matters.

But the lawsuit with Sanson wasn’t the company’s only problem. In early October, one Ohio store had to limit its hours and store shelves sat empty for weeks, according to Ohio news outlet The Real Deal Press.

Meanwhile, the city of Chicago wasn’t aware of the lawsuit against Yellow Banana, said Peter Strazzabosco, deputy commissioner for the Department of Planning and Development.

He said news of the lawsuit doesn’t change its deal with Yellow Banana, as long as the grocery chain follows the redevelopment agreement approved by City Council.

“Compliance will continue according to the redevelopment agreement,” he said.

Yellow Banana has courted controversy in Chicago since it was awarded more than $25 million in tax increment financing and federal tax grants to rehab and revitalize Save A Lot stores on Chicago’s South and West sides.

Black-owned company gets OK for $13.5M city subsidy to buy, revamp 6 South, West side grocery stores

On Oct. 23, the same day Sanson filed its lawsuit, city employees tried to contact Yellow Banana to receive updates about its opening plans following a resident’s inquiry into Yellow Banana, according to emails obtained by the Sun-Times through a public records request.

Emails show staff in the Bureau of Economic Development tried calling and leaving voicemails for Yellow Banana CEO Joe Canfield but only received an “automated response,” according to an email.

“Did you hear from these guys yet? Now [Ald. Greg] Mitchell asking me about the status of both locations in his ward too,” Tim Jeffries, managing deputy commissioner, emailed to Financial Planning Analyst Billy Grams.

Questioning the timeline

The series of emails reviewed by the Sun-Times show a pattern of Yellow Banana failing to communicate with the city and changing its timeline for store renovations.

In July, Kenya Merritt, the newly-appointed deputy mayor of business and neighborhood development, wanted specifics on Yellow Banana’s timeline for the now eight stores that were approved for funding, emails show.

Isaac Smoak, World Business Chicago director of community impact, emailed Merritt that Canfield only provided information for four stores after he requested a “clear timeline.” The timeline for those stores was later pushed back again.

“I think it would be good to get a more robust timeline from Yellow Banana, given the substantial funding they have received,” Smoak wrote.

Yellow Banana was approved for a total of $18.3 million in grant funding through the Chicago Recovery Fund. It was also approved to receive a total of nearly $7 million in federal funding for two stores.

Fewer stores

Yellow Banana operates stores in Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin. It owned locations in Florida until Oct. 1, when it finalized the sale of four stores to Ascend Grocery, a Yellow Banana spokesperson confirmed.

The company has 10 locations in Chicago, with five that are open including a controversial Englewood site that took over a former Whole Foods.

Englewood Save A Lot opening postponed after pressure from community

Two — Gresham and West Garfield Park — are closed for renovation. Its Woodlawn location has remained closed since May, after a break-in. Another two locations are expected to open — one in Riverdale and another store whose location has yet to be announced.

The Gresham store was initially slated to open at the end of 2022, but the opening date has been pushed back several times, with Canfield in August citing “permit delays,” according to Block Club.

But city records show construction permits for the Gresham location were approved in October 2022. And emails showed the city had already given the green light to start construction.

Ald. David Moore (17th) told the Sun-Times in November that there were no permit delays and the Gresham store was expected to open around Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving came and went without an opening.

A Yellow Banana spokesperson said Wednesday that “construction and equipment installation delays” have stalled the openings for the Gresham and West Garfield Park stores.

The opening dates are now projected for the first quarter of 2024.

This story has been updated to clarify Yellow Banana’s grant funding.

The Save A Lot at 2858 E. 83rd St. in South Chicago is one of six stores to be renovated and reopened after grant money from the city.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Thousands of holiday meals get prepped for delivery to migrants, residents on Thanksgiving

2023-11-22T15:20:25.562-06:00

Joey Lansing (right), former Levy Restaurants general counsel, and Levy Restaurants CEO Andy Lansing load stuffing on trays to prep for their Thanksgiving day meal deliveries.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

The day before Thanksgiving, two brothers stir a vat filled with creamy homemade stuffing. They’re in the baseball stadium-sized kitchen at Guaranteed Rate Field making food that will turn into 4,000 holiday meals.

Andy and Joey Lansing’s stirring is comparable to steering — they’re using mixing tools similar to oars to make 800 pounds of stuffing.

Nearby, more than 30 volunteers cut slabs of turkey and make homemade potato chips and sweet potatoes to prep for the early morning start Thursday.

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Meals will be delivered by semi-truck Thanksgiving morning to the Salvation Army Freedom Center for takeaway, dine-in and mobile outreach, plus local women’s shelters, Ronald McDonald House Chicago, Lurie Children’s Hospital, migrant and homeless shelters, and locations where the unhoused typically gather.

“It’s the greatest thing we do,” said Andy Lansing, CEO of Levy Restaurants. “Seven hundred people are having a home-cooked meal in our restaurants tomorrow. We’ll be bringing this exact same food to 4,000 more people.”

This is the nationwide restaurant and hospitality company’s 27th year of giveaways, and its third day of prep. Historically, most of the meals have gone to the Salvation Army. But this year, meals have also been allocated to serve some of the city’s 25,000 asylum-seekers, many of whom have been camped out at police stations.

The Levy team adapted plans to include shelters where migrants are staying in the food sharing on Thanksgiving Day.

Plans to bring meals to migrants made this year’s event the largest ever for Levy Restaurants, which serves locations like Guaranteed Rate Field, the United Center and both Disney World and Disneyland. It even makes dine-in meals at Water Tower Place’s American Girl Cafe.

The tradition is a “tightly choreographed dance,” said Alison Weber, chief creative officer. Weber, like many volunteers, has been involved since the 1997 inception. She’s been on cranberry duty ever since.

The company’s “best day of the year,” Weber says, will begin at 4 a.m., when meals are warmed and loaded.

If the event is a choreographed dance, chef Robin Rosenberg is the instructor. He handles extensive prep and delivery details, easily rattling off the number of meals served at each location. He says 1,200 will go to migrants.

“They removed the migrants out of police stations and into shelters, so we’re finding out where those are and we’re going there, too,” he said.

“It’s literally like having an army,” Weber added. “And Robin is our leader. It helps everybody be involved and feel good about simply being involved, but then you’re doing the good work on the back end. So it’s really kind of cool.”

Meals will be at Salvation Army Freedom Center at 825 N. Christina Ave. on Thanksgiving from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. A mobile team will deliver meals in communities throughout the day.

Homer Glen deaths of Glendale Heights police officer, wife investigated as murder-suicide

2023-11-20T17:48:51.244-06:00

Glendale Heights police Sgt. Michael Huff and his wife were found dead Sunday in the 13600 block of Shannon Drive in Homer Glen.

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The deaths of a Glendale Heights police sergeant and his wife on Sunday evening are being investigated as a murder-suicide, the Will County Sheriff’s Office said.

Sgt. Michael Huff had been with the Glendale Heights Police Department for more than 20 years, and his wife, Jackie Huff, was a former Glendale Heights employee, the police department said Monday.

Michael Huff was promoted to sergeant in June 2022, according to a since-deleted tweet from the police department.

“This loss has left a deep void within the village of Glendale Heights,” the police department said. “Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Michael and Jackie, and we extend our sincerest condolences during this incredibly difficult time.”

Someone called 911 on Sunday to report hearing an argument followed by gunshots coming from the couple’s Homer Glen home.

Deputies arrived at the home in the 13600 block of Shannon Drive about 5:46 p.m. and found a man and woman on the kitchen floor covered in blood, according to the sheriff’s office. Fire department officers confirmed the deaths.

Officers said a handgun was found near the bodies.

An initial investigation by detectives determined that the deaths were a murder-suicide.

Glendale Heights police said Michael Huff killed his wife before killing himself.

The police department is working with the Will County Sheriff’s Office to “provide any information” that could help the investigation, police said.

The Sheriff’s Office described the deaths as an “isolated incident” and said an autopsy will be performed.

Lawsuits against L’Oréal, Chicago-based companies over hair relaxers move forward

2023-11-15T18:30:44.987-06:00

A cosmetologist applies hair relaxer on a customer.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times (file)

An Illinois federal judge ruled Tuesday that thousands of lawsuits against major beauty companies that sold chemical hair relaxers that could cause cancer has enough merit to move forward, according to court documents.

Companies including Revlon and L’Oréal, which owns the Chicago-based SoftSheen-Carson brand, had filed a motion to dismiss the claims. But U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland largely rejected their arguments, allowing a majority of the counts — 12 out of 15 — to move forward such as counts of negligence, design defect and failure to warn customers of the risks, court documents show.

The more than 8,000 lawsuits from 19 different districts share similar complaints to the first case filed in October 2022 by Jenny Mitchell and attorney Ben Crump with co-counsel Diandra “Fu” Debrosse Zimmermann, in federal court in Chicago. Crump, known for representing the families of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown and George Floyd, said at the time that Mitchell’s lawsuit was the first filed over links between the products and cancer.

Mitchell said she had used products from ORS Haircare, manufactured by Chicago-based Namaste Laboratories, since she was a young girl and by 28, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer and had a hysterectomy.

Hair relaxer caused Missouri woman’s cancer, lawsuit alleges

Her case cited an October 2022 study from the National Institutes of Health that found women who used hair relaxers were twice as likely to develop uterine cancer than women who did not use those products. And another 2021 study, funded by NIH and the National Institute of Minority Health Sciences, found relaxers were “strongly associated with ovarian cancer,” according to court documents.

The lawsuits, which were consolidated in February, also claim brands “intentionally targeted Black and Brown women,” as well as teenagers and children without warning them of the potential effects of the chemical ingredients.

Many of the products are mainstays at stores such as Walmart and Target as well as Amazon. The packaging often features Black women and girls with silky straight hair. Just for Me by Strength of Nature, whose parent company Godrej Consumer Products is a defendant, advertises its children’s relaxer as “soft and gentle for worry-free manageability.”

A L’Oréal spokesperson said the company is “confident in the safety” of their SoftSheen-Carson’s products that are referenced in the complaint and that the accusations have “neither legal nor scientific merit.”

“L’Oréal’s highest priority is the health and wellbeing of all our consumers,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Our products are subject to a rigorous scientific evaluation of their safety by experts who also ensure that we strictly follow all regulations in every market in which we operate.”

The spokesperson also cast doubt on the NIH study and pointed toward other factors that could have contributed to the health outcomes. The study reported heat processes such as flat-ironing could also contribute to health issues because the heat could release or decompose chemicals present in the relaxers “leading to potential higher exposures to hazardous chemicals among the users.”

West Garfield Park grocery pop-up opens to fill gap during Save A Lot’s temporary closure

2023-11-06T16:53:06.973-06:00

Angela Taylor stocks the vegetables as they prep to open the Garfield Park Grocery Store Pop-Up market in West Garfield Park.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Nicole Hunter was heading out of a West Garfield Park grocery store Monday with a receipt for $4.18 and a bag full of fresh oranges, apples and chicken legs. She had sifted through the locally made jams and salsas, fresh produce and pantry staples lining the new grocery pop-up.

West Garfield Park’s new Grocery Store Pop-Up was needed, Hunter said, because “we don’t have an adequate grocery store in our neighborhood.”

The storefront at 4316 W. Madison St. will be open through Dec. 21, Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. It will be a temporary replacement for a nearby Save A Lot, at 420 S. Pulaski Road, that’s being renovated by owner company Yellow Banana.

The pop-up is a collaborative effort by West Side United, Garfield Park Community Council’s Rite to Wellness Collaborative and the Blackhawks Foundation.

The foundation donated $50,000 to the Garfield Park Grocery Store Pop-Up as part of their larger $250,000 commitment to the West Side and projects from the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative.

The pop-up space offers many of the options at a typical grocery store — a range of fresh produce, meat, canned goods, soups and pastas — all at affordable prices, plus baking goods and some household items. The produce that doesn’t come from their West Side distributor are the same brands stocked at Jewel and Mariano’s.

Vegetables and fruit display at the “pop-up grocer” market in West Garfield Park.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Angela Taylor, wellness coordinator for Garfield Park Community Council, has spearheaded pop-ups of this kind the last few years and has used the data and insight gained from the community to offer products residents want, she said.

“If we don’t get information from (the community), then we just run it on our own fuel and our own agenda,” Taylor said. “It’s for us, by us.”

The prices are determined by both the median income level of the area and distributor prices, she said.

The West Garfield Park Save A Lot recently closed for renovation as part of a $13.5 million TIF financing grant from the city, and Taylor hopes it will reopen around the end of the year. The pop-up was already slated for later this month, but Yellow Banana decided to close early, so they moved up their timeline, Taylor said.

Ideally, the store will be more than a pop-up for the community, Taylor said, but they’d need more funding.

The Rite to Wellness Collaborative has applied for a Small Business Storefront Activation grant from the city and expects to hear back later this month.

Feedback from the community has shown residents’ desire a for-profit grocery store that “will come in and save us,” Taylor said. “But that doesn’t seem to be happening.”

If it’s not going to happen from a company, then the community will come together to create their own, she said.

Yellow Banana may be interested in providing for the community while their store is closed, Taylor said. She’s hesitant to say a collaboration will for-sure happen, but there have been conversations about what the company could do to support the community during the renovation.

“We’re working — attempting to work — with Save A Lot to get them an opportunity to have a response to the community with their store being closed,” she said. “I don’t want to speak too much about it because it isn’t real for me yet.”

Shoppers are happily flocking to the pop-up.

Latrice Williams stopped by the new store within the first hour of opening Monday to fill a basket full of groceries. This store is convenient for her, and she won’t have to travel for a Pete’s Fresh Market or Jewel-Osco for good options.

Hunter stopped by to support a grocer that’s nearby and fits her standards. She values clean, non-GMO groceries and produce.

“When you have a personal relationship with the growers and farmers in the community, you know what they’re using for pesticides,” she said. “You know how they’re measuring the fruits and the vegetables to see if it’s quality food.”

Hunter feels confident giving the apples she purchased at the pop-up to her son. Before heading out, she took a last look around the space, with its front-facing windows, dark wood flooring and bricked walls.

“You know, it actually looks like an upscale grocery store,” she said.

Although the storefront is only open till Dec. 21, shoppers are still hoping for an extension.

“It’s the same brands, but it’s cheaper,” Williams said. “I hope it stays longer than just December, but I understand. It’s like the farmer’s market, it can only be open for so long.”

Black-owned coffee shop slated to open at Englewood Save A Lot

2023-11-03T18:11:28.706-05:00

Kavia Simmons, founder of I Love My Coffee Black, at her cafe inside Save A Lot in Englewood, 832 W. 63rd St.

Provided

Save A Lot franchisee Yellow Banana has made good on its promise to include a Black-owned vendor at its Englewood location, six months after the company’s controversial takeover of the former Whole Foods.

I Love My Coffee Black plans to open its first brick-and-mortar location at the site by the end of the year, according to founder Kavia Simmons. The 150-square-foot cafe, at 832 W. 63rd St., will serve coffee, tea and pastries.

Simmons hopes to host a grand opening later this month. Her license agreement stipulates the initial partnership will run until March 2024. A monthly 5% fee of gross monthly sales will be paid to Yellow Banana, the license agreement says.

Yellow Banana did not return a request for comment.

Simmons said communication with Save A Lot “has been good,” noting she was at the new space Thursday.

Save A Lot officials face off with Englewood residents over plans for shuttered Whole Foods site

Her coffee company’s specialty is making black coffee amenable to drinkers who like some flavor.

“We do flavor-infused coffee, so you can still enjoy it black,” she said.

Simmons, who launched the coffee company in 2019, worked as a waitress before managing a coffee shop in Indiana. She began working at Stivers Coffee’s warehouse in Pilsen, from where she now sources her own beans.

Simmons said she became entrenched in the coffee business and even now still works at the Stivers warehouse.

“I’m still roasting. I’m grinding. I’m inventing,” she said.

The partnership with Save A Lot came about through Greg Stivers, founder of Stivers Coffee. Yellow Banana first approached Stivers about opening a location at its Englewood space, but he was retiring, so he suggested Simmons.

“I was planning to open up a coffee truck first,” she said.

The pandemic prompted Simmons to sell her coffee beans online and since then, she’s opened pop-up stores around the city. She hopes to still open a coffee truck as well as stores and own her own roastery.

“It’s totally a stepping stone for me to connect my brand with the community,” she said. “I’m looking to maybe educate the community about heart health awareness. Most of us believe we have to have coffee with a ton of cream and sweeteners in order for us to get a flavor.”

But naturally sweetening black coffee is possible, Simmons said.

“I’m really excited about being in the grocery store around the customers and being outside of the warehouse,” she said.

Black-owned company gets OK for $13.5M city subsidy to buy, revamp 6 South, West side grocery stores

Food deserts plague Chicago neighborhoods. Could the city run its own grocery stores to fill in the gaps?

2023-11-02T16:02:07.123-05:00

Maurice Richmond is manager of the locally owned nonprofit Go Green Community Fresh Market in Englewood, which offers ready-to-eat meal options from local vendors, and a deli and coffee counter. He had questions when he learned of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s exploration of a city-owned grocery store. “My first thought was, great,” Richmond says. “My second thought was, ‘How is that going to look?”

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Maurice Richmond, the manager of a locally owned, nonprofit Englewood grocery and former manager of the Whole Foods that closed in the same community, has stayed in the neighborhood because he believes in providing food access, not because it’s easy.

Go Green Community Fresh Market provides low-cost, high quality options for residents who have seen store after store abandon the South Side neighborhood. The market includes ready-to-eat meal options from local vendors and a deli and coffee counter.

“There’s so much that goes behind this that people just don’t realize,” he said during a shift at his current spot, which offers options that mirror the items Richmond stocked at Whole Foods. “My vision is to see — with some of my knowledge, with the things I know — if stores like this can make it.”

That’s why Richmond had questions when he learned Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office was exploring the possibility of opening a city-owned grocery store aimed at shrinking food deserts on the South and West sides.

“My first thought was, great,” Richmond said. “My second thought was, ‘How is that going to look? How is that going to roll out?’”

Johnson announced last month a plan to consider a city-owned grocery store to help areas where many residents have less access to major supermarkets with the closure of stores such as Walmart and Whole Foods.

“All Chicagoans deserve to live near convenient, affordable, healthy grocery options. We know access to grocery stores is already a challenge for many residents, especially on the South and West sides,” Johnson said in a statement.

Grocery items for sale at the Go Green Community Fresh Market at 1207 W. 63rd St.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Exodus of major, full-service grocers offering healthy variety paints a bleak picture of food access for some in Chicago

However, like Richmond, other local grocers and food industry experts have asked the same question about Johnson’s proposal: Would the city do a good job of running a business?

That depends on who you ask.

Equitable access to quality food should be treated as a public good, said Ameya Pawar, senior adviser at the Economic Security Project, a nonprofit partnering with the city to study ways a city-owned store could take shape.

In a 2022 column he co-authored in the Sun-Times about ending food deserts, Pawar pointed to Midway and O’Hare Airports as examples of businesses operated by the city that are “complex and professionally run.”

“There’s no reason why the city couldn’t do the same with grocery stores,” he wrote.

Pawar, a former 47th Ward alderperson, told the Sun-Times while there are “legitimate” critiques of publicly owned businesses, he wants to eliminate the idea that “markets can do no wrong and the government can do no right.”

“That ideology has led us to this idea that the only way we can ever open a grocery store, the only way we can ever get big businesses to open in communities that they don’t want to open in is by begging them, prodding them, paying them,” said Pawar. “And then they’re here to take the money today, and they’re gone tomorrow.”

He cites water systems and state-run liquor stores in 16 states as evidence of government’s ability to run businesses.

Plan to rehab West Side grocery ‘like putting a Band-Aid over a terrible wound,’ shoppers say: ‘We need a new building’

But grocery industry experts aren’t sure a city-owned store is the answer.

Phil Lempert, a grocery and food trends expert based in California dubbed the “Supermarket Guru,” said he loves the idea but has doubts about its sustainability.

Lempert previously worked in Chicago and is familiar with its grocery landscape.

“Unless there is state or federal funds that can offset whatever losses,” he warned, “it’s probably not going to succeed. It’s not just about having a grant once. You’ve got to have commitment for 10 years in order to make it work.”

The city would also need to pay higher wages to entice people to work at the store, he said. To provide low-cost, affordable healthy food, it would need to do what the Englewood market does and would likely operate at a loss.

Pawar acknowledged there would be challenges.

“I understand we’re talking about high-volume and low-margin businesses,” Pawar said. “It isn’t for the faint of heart. But it also isn’t rocket science.”

And a city-owned grocer, Pawar said, wouldn’t only be focused on profit.

“There are other calculations that must be taken into account ... well-being, reduction of toxic stress, increase of life expectancy,” he said. “That’s why you want to treat some things like a public good. The returns are calculated differently than a private business.”

Still, all financial models, including profit and nonprofit, need to be studied for Chicago, he said.

Lempert pointed to the Salvation Army’s DMG Foods in Baltimore as an example of a nonprofit local grocer operating in a large city, similar to Go Green in Chicago. It opened in 2018 but closed three years later due to a “lack of customers,” the Salvation Army said.

Lempert has some advice for the mayor’s office: Find an operator that knows the business; spend time in the community to know what residents want; have a large funding commitment; and make the store for-profit.

“Nonprofits who have tried supermarkets, it typically doesn’t work. The supermarket industry is a very intricate, sometimes strange business,” he said. “I’m saying this politely, but the government shouldn’t be running a supermarket. I don’t think they know how to.”

A number of obstacles face nonprofit grocers, according to Nonprofit Quarterly, a publication that examines nonprofit organizations and management. Those hurdles include lack of grocery expertise, low profits, high expenses and an ever-changing industry, the publication noted in 2019.

Some nonprofit grocery stores launched across the country to address low-food access have not lasted even five years, including Washington, D.C.’s Good Foods Market, which stayed open a year, and Oakland, California’s Community Foods Market, which had a three-year run.

But other nonprofit grocers like Jubilee Market in Waco, Texas, are still in operation. Jubilee, owned by Mission Waco, has been open since 2016. The store offers $25 shares in the store to raise money and encourages shoppers with higher incomes to frequent the store, its website says.

Rural areas with populations hovering around 1,000 in Florida and Kansas have opened municipality-owned stores, but they can’t be compared to a large city like Chicago, Lempert said.

The village of Cody in Nebraska has a population under 200, with a Circle C Market run by the school district and managed by students. Erie, Kansas, a town of 1,037 people, bought its only grocery store to stop it from closing.

A study exploring Johnson’s idea is expected to be finished early next year, said S. Mayumi Grigsby, Johnson’s policy chief.

Whether the city takes an approach to a grocery store like the one in Waco, Texas, Grigsby said collaboration with community members will be key to getting support for any proposal.

Grigsby didn’t say whether the city would run a store in addition to owning it, or if the operators would be city-affiliated or an outside party with business experience.

“We will make sure that all of those [options] are put on display and studied, and then ultimately, the policymakers will decide what the best route is, along with the community,” Pawar said.

Whichever option the city goes with, there are community residents looking to open their own grocery stores.

A community grocer is a key part of the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative’s planned “walkable village” on the West Side, where an Aldi that closed in 2021 would be replaced.

The city purchased the former Aldi property in 2022 and is fielding proposals for the site and asking developers to include a grocery.

Liz Abunaw, owner of the Forty Acres Fresh Market pop-up and grocery delivery service, is developing a brick-and-mortar grocery at 5713 W. Chicago Ave. in Austin.

Her grocery has received some city help and is expected to get some more in an upcoming grant, according to a city spokesperson. But, generally, the difficulty for community grocers is “we don’t have years of accumulated wealth and capital behind us,” she said.

Lempert wondered if the city could back a local entrepreneur like Abunaw.

“This business is a difficult business,” Lempert said. “So why start from scratch, just to have more problems and issues than you need to?”

Mariah Rush and Michael Loria are staff reporters at the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.

Brown Sugar Bakery opens new manufacturing facility, eyes nationwide expansion

2023-10-26T18:18:45.586-05:00

Brown Sugar Baker owner Stephanie Hart looks to take her sweets nationwide with a new factory and several partnerships.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Brown Sugar Bakery owner Stephanie Hart slowly pulled apart a chocolate-coated candy to reveal a gooey center dripping with caramel — a treat that will soon be available nationwide.

“See, this is what I love about our turtles,” Hart said. “They stretch like cheese.”

“Damn, that turtle is good,” she said after tasting the confection.

Hart was celebrating the opening Thursday of her bakery’s 10,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Ashburn with a ribbon-cutting. She was joined by politicians, including Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Deputy Mayor of Business Kenya Merritt.

Brown Sugar Bakery has been a mainstay on Chicago’s South Side and has operated at other locations, including at Navy Pier, that have closed. Its current storefront selling cakes, chocolates and candies is based in Greater Grand Crossing, at 328 E. 75th St.

But now Hart will be able to sell her products nationwide with the new manufacturing facility, formerly the home of Cupid Candies’ factory, near 76th Street and Western Avenue. The new plant will likely employ 50 people by the end of the year, she said.

In recent years, Hart has taken Cupid Candies under her sweets-based empire and now is partnering with Chicago-based Angelica’s Bakery to bring her cakes to grocery stores this holiday season, she said.

Pritzker praised Hart Thursday, calling her “a hero to many” and an inspiration to minority female entrepreneurs.

“With today’s ribbon-cutting, the Brown Sugar Factory — the pride of Chicago — will go national. That’s a big deal for us,” Pritzker said.

He said he hopes the new facility, by expanding partnerships and offering nationwide shipping, will make the company a national staple.

“I often say it’s a 21-year overnight success,” he said. “Because once people recognize it, they see it for what it is, which is something great. But those things don’t happen overnight. They really do take time.”

The state awarded Hart two grants to help get the factory off the ground. In 2020, she received $500,000 from the Minority-Owned Business Capital and Infrastructure program and $10,000 from the Back to Business grant program in 2022.

Hart knew the company needed to expand soon after Vice President Kamala Harris dropped in for a slice of German chocolate cake in 2021 to spotlight Black female-owned businesses.

After Kamala Harris visit, business jumps at Brown Sugar Bakery on Chicago’s South Side

“We were moving through the floors,” Hart said. “We couldn’t put in one more piece of equipment.”

Decked out in a red T-shirt with her bakery’s name and “Life is sweet” in glittery sprawl, Hart didn’t mince words about the bumpy road she’s faced over the last two decades.

Owner Stephanie Hart speaks about the journey to open the Brown Sugar Bakery production factory at 7637 S. Western Ave, during a ribbon-cutting for the new space.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

In 2022, a car smashed into the bakery, causing $20,000 in damages. The incident was a turning point and led Hart to “handle her life differently,” she said. After the news broke, Hart was contacted by businesses that wanted to sell her candies in airports, which led to new opportunities for the bakery.

“It’s been hellacious,” she said. “Now when I speak, I’m more honest about being an entrepreneur. Pre-pandemic, everybody was like, ‘Oh, entrepreneurship — yay! Everybody is gonna be an entrepreneur!’ And I’m sort of like, if you don’t have a little bit of a part of you that can really take a lot of pain, you might want to suck it up.”

In addition to the facility and partnership with Angelica’s Bakery, Hart plans to add a new menu item. She’s launching her first vegan cake, a poundcake that came to fruition with Gabrielle Darvassy, owner of Hyde Park’s vegan restaurant B’Gabs Goodies. It will be made in-house and shipped nationwide.

And with the manufacturing facility open, Hart is now preparing for the busiest time of year.

“I had to push through because it’s almost Christmas,” she said. “It’s candy time.”

Brown Sugar Bakery owner Stephanie Hart (center) cuts the ribbon alongside Gov. J.B. Pritzker, as well as friends, co-workers and state officials at her new factory at 7637 S. Western Ave.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Employees work on nut and caramel-covered apples at the new Brown Sugar Bakery production factory at 7637 S. Western Ave.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Black, Brown breast cancer survivors in Chicago spread message of advocacy

2023-10-13T13:56:50.717-05:00

People walk, celebrate and raise breast cancer awareness during the Sista Strut earlier this month at the Salvation Army Kroc Center on the Far South Side. The walk benefited the Sisters Network Chicago Chapter, a breast cancer survivor support group for Black women.

Pat Nabong / Sun-Times

Alexandria Abraham found a lump in her breast two years ago, when she was 25. She was referred to specialists to get a biopsy but didn’t go because she didn’t have good health insurance.

As the lump grew and her symptoms multiplied, she resigned herself to believing she likely had breast cancer.

“I was very stoic,” Abraham said. “It didn’t really hit me yet. I was just worried.”

When she got a new job with better insurance — a year later — she got a biopsy.

Her mid-20s diagnosis of breast cancer is rare — only 5% of women are diagnosed with breast cancer in their 20s.

“I like to go out every weekend,” Abraham said. “I just like to do stuff. I’m adventurous. Cancer has taken that away from me.”

Alexandria Abraham, 27, was diagnosed with breast cancer at 25 and receives treatment at Rush University Medical Center.

Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere / Sun-Times

Women of color — especially Black women — haven’t benefited equally from advancements in breast cancer treatment, according to a 2022 report from the American Cancer Society. It found that Black women have a 40% higher mortality rate nationally than white women for breast cancer despite a higher incidence of the disease among white women.

Experts say reasons for that include Black and Brown women having less access to quality health care, aggressive types of cancers being more often found in women of color and Black and Brown women getting diagnosed later in the progression of the disease.

But support offered to women of color through the Lurie Cancer Center Hispanic Breast Cancer Clinic, and groups including Sisters Working It Out, provide community, health care access and hope for Black and Brown survivors.

Dr. Claudia Tellez, a Chicago oncologist, said Black women advocating for themselves led her to spearhead the Hispanic Breast Cancer Clinic at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The clinic, which opened in September, provides care in Spanish and aims to lessen disparities in breast cancer care for the Hispanic population.

While Hispanic patients in Illinois have mortality rates lower than Black and white patients, Tellez said most Hispanic breast cancer patients haven’t received care from top-tier major medical centers. Instead, she said, they often seek care in their communities.

It can be intimidating to go to a big medical facility, especially if you aren’t comfortable speaking English or are worried about not understanding your doctors, Tellez said.

Major hospitals have doctors who specialize in treating breast cancer, but community-based care centers might not offer the same array of treatments, Tellez said.

“It’s particularly concerning that the type of care our women are getting in the community is suboptimal,” she said. “They’re not receiving the best treatments for all the stages. But they’re also not being able to participate in clinical trials.”

Tellez said patients of all ethnic backgrounds should get a second opinion from a cutting-edge medical center even if they choose to get treated in the community.

Black women — particularly young Black women — are much more likely to develop aggressive forms of breast cancer such as triple-negative breast cancer and inflammatory breast cancer. Tellez said these patients could benefit from advanced medical treatment, like the clinical trials that top-tier medical centers offer.

Some mistakenly believe that care at top hospitals is more expensive, Tellez said. But a patient with insurance paying a co-pay will likely still pay the same amount as at any other facility, she said. And people who are undocumented or uninsured often can get breast cancer care for free from Northwestern, she said.

Last weekend, when Erika Aleman ran in the Chicago Marathon, she crossed the finish line with a time of three hours and 44 minutes — her personal best. Aleman, 44, has run 14 marathons, but this was her first since being in remission for breast cancer.

Erika Aleman (left) ran in the Chicago Marathon earlier this month, crossing the finish line with a time of three hours and 44 minutes — her personal best. Aleman, 44, has run 14 marathons, but this was her first since being in remission for breast cancer.

Provided

A native of Mexico, she was diagnosed in March 2021 after pushing her clinic to give her a referral for a mammogram. She’d felt a lump after losing 20 pounds while training in hopes of qualifying for the Boston Marathon.

“At the beginning, the doctor who saw me at the time told me that, according to her experience, [the lump] didn’t feel like cancer,” Aleman said.

The mother of two said she didn’t have health insurance but decided she’d pay out of pocket for the appointment, which was scheduled for three months later at Northwestern.

She was terrified. Stories of friends who died from breast cancer flashed through her mind.

“When I went to the hospital, I was just waiting for them to tell me that it was going to be my last day,” Aleman said.

Being her own advocate paid off even though she didn’t make it to Boston. Instead, she went through chemotherapy and had a double mastectomy just days after running last year’s Chicago Marathon.

Her doctors and nurses — who now work with the Lurie Cancer Center Hispanic Breast Cancer Clinic — were supportive and encouraged her to continue running.

The new clinic focusing on Spanish speakers is needed, she said.

“I do speak English, but sometimes it’s really hard to understand those big medical words,” Aleman said. “Having someone to speak the same language, it really helps calm anxiety or any worries that we have.”

Like Aleman, Abraham, who’s been treated at Rush University Medical Center, said she feels lucky to have gotten great care.

Initially, she said, she tried to keep going to work amid her chemotherapy appointments, but she later realized she needed to take a leave of absence.

Two years after first noticing the lump, Abraham finished chemotherapy and had a mastectomy. She now has a drain attached to her abdomen, a remnant of the surgery. She’s awaiting the news about whether the cancer is still there. If so, radiation might be the next step.

Abraham said she was returning from a psychiatry appointment her doctors set up. The invasive treatments have taken a toll on her mental health.

Through her support system at Rush, she got involved in the Sisters Working It Out organization, which is dedicated to educating and supporting Black women and health issues.

“I really want to advocate for younger women to start paying attention to any changes in their breasts,” she said.

Nationally, events like the Sista Strut Breast Cancer Walk raise awareness about breast cancer’s prevalence among women of color. At the walk in Chicago earlier this month, women sporting shades of pink bonded, some wearing sashes with “survivor” emblazoned on them. Others held photos of loved ones. The event helped raise money for the Chicago chapter of the Sisters Network, a breast cancer survivor support group for Black women.

Experts advise women to get a yearly mammogram starting at 40. Even before that, women should do daily breast self-exams, said Beulah Brent, chief executive officer of Sisters Working It Out.

Brent said she’s heard countless stories of doctors telling women to “wait and see” before doing more comprehensive tests after a troubling mammogram. By the time one woman got to a doctor that took her seriously, Brent said, the patient was already at Stage 3.

“I think the most important thing is how do we bridge this gap? I know educating women of color is the key,” Brent said. “But I think one of the other things that’s so important is educating our providers.”

Through Brent’s organization, patients can get free Uber rides to and from their appointments and free meals.

“You need to get just as familiar with your breasts as you are with your face,” she said.

Leslie Rienzie-Barry, 68, said she had never missed a mammogram. But, in November 2019, the weather was unusually beautiful, she said, and she wanted to enjoy it. So she skipped her appointment.

The Naperville resident got in for her rescheduled screening in February 2020. She assumed the doctors were kidding when she was referred to an oncologist and then diagnosed her with breast cancer.

“Jokingly, I said, ‘Am I being punished now because I didn’t come when I was supposed to?’” Rienzie-Barry said.

She doesn’t know whether keeping her appointment in November would have caught her cancer sooner.

Breast cancer survivor Leslie Rienzie-Barry.

Rich Hein/Sun-Times

“When I think about my story ... I want to say remember to go to checkups,” she said. “And keep that appointment.”

Two years after that missed mammogram — and after chemotherapy and surgery — Rienzie-Barry got her “certificate” of remission.

But she said it’s “never really over.” Continued checkups are necessary, even after being deemed cancer-free.

“I think sometimes we think, with cancer, is that once it’s over, it’s over,” she said. “But it’s never really over.”

Suicide rates of Black Chicago-area residents now higher than pre-pandemic

2023-09-30T06:00:00-05:00

Rafiah Maxie-Cole (left) holds a photo of her son, Jamal Clay, and Valencia Sagnia shows a portrait of her brother, Marquist Spivey. Both men died by suicide. The women have each started mental health programs that offer education and support for Black communities, among others.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times; Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

For years, Valencia Sagnia and her 13 siblings — along with their parents and their growing families — have met at their childhood home every Friday to eat dinner and play cards.

But after one seemingly joyful get-together nearly a decade ago, Sagnia received a call from the fiancée of her younger brother she had just seen hours earlier. Marquist Spivey, dubbed “Keke” by loved ones, had died by suicide at 33.

Sagnia is still trying to make sense of the death of her brother, a father of five who struggled with depression.

She spiraled into grief, then anger — but then became a volunteer with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and will soon be a licensed clinical mental health counselor.

As September — National Suicide Prevention Month — draws to a close, she’s shining a light on the declining mental health of Cook County’s Black residents, which has taken a turn for the worse since the pandemic. In fact, Black residents in Cook County are the only racial group whose suicide rates are higher now than before COVID-19.

More suicides by Black Cook County residents in 2020 than in any year in over a decade

The problem is even worse for men, whose suicide rates are more than three times higher than women in Cook County. Advocates say there isn’t much encouragement for men — particularly Black men— to discuss mental health.

“Mental health is very real, especially in the Black community,” Sagnia says. “We use prayer a lot. It’s like, ‘OK, we can pray, but we also have to walk. We have to take physical steps to do the work.’”

While grassroots mental health organizations and groups have popped up in the Chicago area, city-run resources haven’t done enough outreach in suicide prevention, say residents who have lost loved ones.

Also, a lack of messaging directly to communities in need — in addition to well-documented clinic closures — could have been a factor in higher suicide rates for Blacks, mental health advocates say.

Six city-run mental health clinics closed under Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2011 and remain shut despite promises to reopen them by then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot. One more shuttered, leaving five clinics throughout the city.

Mayor Brandon Johnson campaigned on a platform that included a “treatment, not trauma” initiative, which his office says focuses on reopening the mental health clinics. The ordinance is working its way through the Chicago City Council, said Cassio Mendoza, Johnson’s deputy press secretary.

Mayoral allies lay groundwork for mental health plan dubbed ‘Treatment Not Trauma’ aimed at reopening care facilities

The city’s mental health plans include some key offerings.

The mayor’s office points people to a network of publicly run and funded health centers — not city-run, though the city sometimes contributes funding — as places where people can get mental health care.

Another major initiative, the city’s CARE program, pairs mental health professionals with 911 call centers in select areas to curb police response to mental health crises.

The city also offers mental health programs in 23 schools operated by the Chicago Public Schools and added some at Chicago Public Libraries in 2023.

The Chicago Department of Public Health says it provided help to 73,899 people in 2022, up from 3,651 in 2019.

But some groups whose suicide rates have not dropped to pre-pandemic levels are falling through the cracks and might not know where to get services, or have services in their area, Sagnia says.

Sagnia and her sisters are planning to start a mental health program for Gage Park residents and are hoping to secure public funding.

“I think it’s a community [effort] and a responsibility of the government to provide the money so that the communities actually have resources within that community where they don’t have to go to other communities,” Sagnia says.

Disparity in mental health message

Suicide is an issue that touches more than half of all Americans, experts say.

In 2021, 3.5 million U.S. adults made plans to end their lives by suicide, and 12 million had thoughts of suicide, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

After a dip in rates in 2020, national suicide death rates returned nearly to their peak in 2021.

CST Template - Area Chart: Small Multiples

In Cook County, suicide rates for white residents are higher than any other racial group. Their rates plunged in 2020 before taking a turn upward recently.

But Black residents have seen the largest increase in rates of deaths by suicide since 2019 — a 53.8% total increase with a 79% jump between 2019 and 2020 — and are the only racial or ethnic group documented that has seen no improvement from 2019 rates.

Angela Cummings, executive director of the Illinois chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, says more resources need to reach Black communities.

“So what I saw from that, that the white and Latino population did have a decrease, and that’s great,” she says. “But that means that it’s not translating. So whatever educational program we were doing, we need to make a greater effort to get it into Black communities.”

Cummings’ group has brought suicide prevention messages to Black churches on the South Side.

“When you take populations that may already be marginalized in incredibly important ways — such as food insecurity, poverty, housing insecurity, systemic racism — then you throw something else like a pandemic, then you see that they ... already have been close to a tipping point.”

Suicide prevention message

A Sept. 8 announcement from the Chicago Department of Public Health mentions National Suicide Prevention Month once along with information on COVID-19 tests and vaccines. It points to the national 988 helpline.

The 988 helpline was launched last year. In April, 13.8% of Illinois calls went unanswered, according to an analysis by the nonprofit KFF. Calls can be transferred to other states, which makes the process of locating services for those in crisis difficult, Axios reported.

Reaching out for help from these sources could lead to frustration.

Callers to one of the city-run mental health clinics, which accept patients regardless of insurance status or ability to pay, are transferred to a central intake line.

There can be a wait time. Once answered, callers will try to be matched with a clinic and a therapist, hopefully near them, and see them about once a week. The clinics have limited hours and are open two days a week.

Three of the clinics, as of mid-September, had a waiting list for services, and the Englewood clinic, one of two on the South Side and West Side, wasn’t accepting new patients.

Mendoza, the mayor’s office’s deputy press secretary, told the Sun-Times, “No one directly works with suicide,” and he later emailed a statement about another ordinanceintroduced to the Chicago City Council aiming to give recommendations for expanding mental health resources.

The city has “launched various campaigns,” to raise awareness, Mendoza said. He cites the city’s “Unspoken” website as a way residents can learn about resources and says the city will “look for other innovative ways to promote and connect more people to lifesaving services.”

Only 15 of Chicago’s 77 community areas are served by CARE mental health teams.

A 2022 city report acknowledges that improvements are needed to inform people about the program.

In recent years, West Garfield Park has experienced high rates of deaths by suicide. A city-run mental health clinic, which could serve residents for free or on a sliding scale, is 3 miles away.

The CARE program serves the area — but only through an opioid overdose team. No mental health CARE program is available to those residents.

Northwest Side areas, including Norwood Park, Dunning and Montclare, also have some of the highest suicide rates in the city but no nearby access to the city’s center or CARE program.

Mount Greenwood on the Far Southwest Side, which had the highest rate of deaths by suicide in the city between 2017 and 2021 — 26.6 per 100,000 residents — is not covered under the CARE program, and is about eight miles from the nearest city-run clinic.

A suicide by a police officer rocked the neighborhood in 2021, the second police suicide that week. The next week, the police department announced the hiring of a mental health adviser to address mental health issues among police officers.

Turning pain into purpose

Rafiah Maxie-Cole, 48, was inspired to start her own organization after her son, Jamal Clay, died by suicide on May 27, 2020, two days after George Floyd’s death. On Saturday, he would’ve been 23.

Rafiah Maxie-Cole, who founded Soul Survivors of Chicago after her son Jamal Clay died by suicide in 2020, shows her necklace with a photo of her son.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

In his bedroom, she holds her son’s eighth-grade graduation photo and tears up.

Twenty-four pairs of shoes are displayed neatly on shelves. A pair of bright red dress shoes were a favorite of Jamal’s. Others are part of Maxie-Cole’s organization to honor the souls of those who died by suicide or trauma, support those who are grieving and spread a suicide prevention message.

Soul Survivors of Chicago provides financial support to those struggling with trauma through donations, as well as mental health education aimed specifically to Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities.

Maxie-Cole hears stories about wait times, appointments scheduled weeks away and a large caseload at the city-run mental health centers. She says the city isn’t doing enough for those who want and need help.

“We find ourselves at the back end of those initiatives that are happening in the front end. So yeah, the resources come slowly and trickle down like little raindrops.”

For his birthday Saturday, Jamal’s friends will come by her Olympia Fields home to spend time with her and honor his memory.

“Black males are fighting for the ability to have a voice, to have the resources and to be represented,” she says. “Every day, I go online and see the fatalities, and it’s no joke. It is my dying wish that we continue to have these conversations about the importance of suicide prevention and awareness.”

Suicide help box

Need help?

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is a free, 24/7, confidential service that provides support and connections to resources for those in distress. Call or text 988 or go to https://988lifeline.org/chat/ to start a chat with a trained listener.
Some areas of Chicago are covered under the CARE program, which connects trained mental health professionals to 911 callers experiencing a mental health crises. Mental health professionals can respond to calls with on-site support, help directing the caller to mental health care and follow-up calls. See those areas at https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/public-safety-and-violence-reduction/home/CARE-Dashboard.html.
To find Chicago-area mental health support near you for free or on a sliding scale, visit
Visit https://namiccns.org/resources/crisis-resources-list/ to view Chicago-area support for mental health crises.