A Just Harvest Serves Meals — and Social Justice

On the first floor of a stocky, red-brick building, tucked between a church and apartments for rent, is A Just Harvest. The Rogers Park social outreach organization works to redefine what it means to be a soup kitchen.

As a soup kitchen, A Just Harvest feeds 60 to 100 people every day, according to Deputy Director Irynn Ashaki Williams McClain — but it’s also a food pantry, delivery service and cultural community space.

The kitchen, located at 7649 N. Paulina St., has been open every day of every month for 41 years, apart from a temporary closure during the 2011 blizzard.

Founded as Good News Kitchen in 1983 as an offshoot of Good News Community Church, the kitchen was renamed A Just Harvest in 2010.

McClain said it’s called a community kitchen, not a soup kitchen, because it does more than provide meals — it’s a neighborhood resource.

“It’s not like most programs where you have to sign a sheet, get on a waiting list — anybody can walk in,” Kim Shelton, a pastor at the church, said. “It being open 365 days, no matter what, even providing a food pantry, even providing a heating space when the vortex came through during COVID, to have a place for people to come — they really try to do justice.”

AJH utilizes Illinois’ R3 program — the three Rs being restore, reinvest and renew — to assist people with employment barriers, including those with histories of incarceration, mental illness, family obligations and a lack of higher education. 

Another one of their initiatives is Northside P.O.W.E.R., which combats what McClain described as “food apartheid.”

“We’re changing the language of food deserts because deserts are a natural occurrence and apartheid is intentional,” McClain said. “When there are no grocery stores in a 20-block radius, that’s a problem and that’s not an accident.”

There are three small convenience stores on Howard Street, but they’re each a five-minute walk from each other. There’s a Jewel-Osco a few steps from the Howard stop, but prices are expected to increase at Jewel-Osco as its parent company plans to merge with Kroger.

Every Wednesday, A Just Harvest delivers groceries to Rogers Park residents, averaging 450 deliveries a month this year. The deliveries are meant to help people who can’t get to AJH, whether it’s because they have physical disabilities, lack of transportation or health conditions. In Rogers Park, almost 40% of households don’t have a car and 10.5% of residents have a disability, according to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning.

McClain said AJH receives donations from restaurants, grocery stores, other soup kitchens and Loyola. Since its founding in 2016, Loyola’s chapter of Food Recovery Network has partnered with AJH by delivering leftover food from dining halls and campus cafes.

“We’re really only able to do what we do because of A Just Harvest,” FRN Co-President Maddie Mizon said. “They deserve all the love, all the attention, all the praise.”

Mizon, a third-year psychology major, said FRN’s new fridges have allowed them to deliver to AJH multiple times a week. FRN members also volunteer at AJH by washing dishes and bussing tables, which Mizon said helps strengthen the group.

“They really take the time to teach the volunteers to teach you well and build that rapport with you and have committed, long-term volunteers,” Mizon said.

Second-year environmental studies major and FRN member Kelly Evans volunteered at one of AJH’s weekly Sunday lunches in November, where she packed silverware, filled drinks and served meals.

“Sometimes Loyola can feel like kind of a bubble so it’s nice to expand your effects on the community,” Evans said.

McClain said student volunteers have planted callaloo, a tropical crop popular in Caribbean cuisine. The area around Howard Street is home to a large Caribbean and African community, so it was important to serve people something native to their homeland, McClain said.

Despite Chicago’s cold climate, callaloo can grow thanks to AJH’s greenhouse located around the corner of Gale Elementary Community Academy. The school likewise houses a garden named after Anthony Boatman, an AJH worker in their agriculture program who died in 2016.

Tonia Andreina, who worked as AJH’s director of education and community development from 2016 to 2018, was mentored by Boatman. The two worked on the Genesis Project, a crime prevention and youth entrepreneurship program.

Andreina said her most memorable moment at AJH was receiving $120,000 to fund the school’s garden, where students planted persimmon trees. She said when she visited the garden years after leaving, she saw the literal fruits of their labor.

“I literally started screaming, and people were probably like, ‘Who’s this lady freaking out?’” Andreina said. “And I’m like ‘Dude, there’s persimmons on the tree. Like, you don’t understand — this has been six years in the making.’”

Andreina, who now owns the landscaping company Earth Mama Design, said focusing on fresh, local food remains important.

“Growing our own vegetables and our own produce in urban environments is going to be increasingly important in the years to come, and I think A Just Harvest’s work is a great example of how we can make a local difference in our own communities,” Andreina said.

McClain said she understands people are fearful of what the next presidential administration could mean for social services, but she wants to focus on day-to-day operations of the community kitchen.

“I’m going to keep moving forward and we’re going to feed people every day, because that’s the most immediate need — that they’re going to be hungry,” McClain said.

Students can volunteer at AJH by contacting their volunteer coordinator. AJH also accepts donations, including for their wish list, through their website.