DIONS CHICAGO DREAM INC NFP

Food is medicine: the produce prescription program rationale: health experts are increasingly realizing that food can be the best medicine and that the medical system itself can be used to expand food distribution. As the most advanced food aid logistics provider in the chicagoland region, dion's chicago dream has become the go-to partner for produce prescription programs, allowing the distribution of produce boxes to medicaid-eligible households throughout the region. The program can scale rapidly and widely because medicaid funds most of the costs connected to food purchase and delivery. Impact: dion's chicago dream's produce prescriptions currently serve more than 800 patients throughout cook county, and we are expecting to more than double that with an increase to 2,000 weekly patients in the next 6 months. We also bring over 400 boxes a month to sign-up events, where people can sign up to participate in the produce prescription program. Our partner foodsmart shows evaluation statistics for its version of this program: ?33% of participants are able to sustain a 5% weight loss over 24 months ?39% of participants are able to reverse diabetes after 24 months ?36% of participants with high cholesterol lowered their lipid values to normal

Building the dream team: workforce development rationale: permanent economic security in a neighborhood like englewood comes from permanent employment. The 5-year unemployment average for englewood is 24.9%, roughly 3x the unemployment rate for chicago. Providing good jobs can stabilize the community, and this has been a part of dion's chicago dream model since day one. Not one volunteer hour has been logged for the organization, allowing dion's chicago dream to focus on community hiring and economic development. Impact: currently, the organization employs 31 community members in living-wage jobs that pay at least 20 per hour. Given our projected expansion over the next year, we expect the organization's staff to reach more than 60. At that point, we would be the second-largest private employer in englewood, next to st. Bernard hospital.