West Side United awarded $10,000 grants to 16 small businesses on the West Side.
This year’s grant winners were informed they won the in late April. They include Cajun Cafe Chicago, Not Just Cookies, Suga & Spice Inc., Tidy Up Experts and Twisted Eggroll, all located in Garfield Park.
Johnathon Bush, owner of Not Just Cookies at 4300 W Lake St., said he has applied to the grant a few times since 2018, but this was the first year West Side United awarded it to his business.
“I was shocked when I got the email,” Bush said. “It’s a very competitive grant, and there’s a lot of worthy businesses on the West Side. So, I was surprised that we got it and super, super grateful.”
West Side United — made up of Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Ascension, Cook County Health, Rush University Medical Center, Sinai Health System and the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System — was founded in 2018 to work toward eliminating the life expectancy gap on Chicago’s West Side, which has long been affected by systemic racism. Since then, the healthcare collaborative has offered yearly grants and has given almost $2 million to over 120 businesses on the West Side.
According to Sanita Lewis, West Side United’s director of anchor mission, about 280 businesses applied for the most recent grant with the hope that it would help grow and scale their offerings.
Not Just Cookies offers baked goods for corporate and catering orders and employs several West Side residents, Bush said. And soon, Bush said he’s launching a line for local grocery stores, and he plans to use the grant money for packaging and product development.
Nikkita Randle, founder and owner of frozen eggroll company Twisted Eggroll, located in food and beverage incubator The Hatchery Chicago, was also excited about winning the grant since she applied last year and didn’t get it.
“I was elated,” Randle said. “We had definitely just come out of a slow season, so this was a nice cash injection for us that really helped us get back on track.” Randle is using the $10,000 to buy inventory for upcoming events and to fund the company while it’s filling orders. Twisted Eggroll has a nationwide deal with the grocery store chain Sprouts Farmers Market and, when Twisted Eggroll receives orders from Sprouts. There’s a 30-day lag between shipping and payment.
Lashon Burrell is the founder and executive chef of Cajun Cafe Chicago, a catering company offering Southern cuisine, also located inside The Hatchery. She said she thinks West Side United awarded a grant to Cajun Cafe Chicago partially because of the business’ role in the community, where it regularly works with local nonprofits.
Burrell said she plans to use the $10,000 to hire more employees, to pay a deposit for a second delivery vehicle and to buy equipment for Cajun Cafe Chicago.
“We plan to use the funds to help better our business and help uplift the community in any way we can by hiring more people on the West Side and being able to give back,” Burrell said.
Helping uplift small businesses
The West Side United collaborative is a convener and capacity builder for Chicago’s West Side community. The organization targets local economic vitality, education, health and physical environments, according to Lewis.
“We know that wealth leads to health,” Lewis said. “You have access to better care because you have access to dollars that allow you to take advantage of that.”
Small businesses that have received a grant from West Side United since 2018 have reported an average revenue increase of 42% when comparing income from the year before and after receiving the grant. West Side United estimates that its small business grant program has contributed to creating or maintaining over 600 jobs.
While the goal of the grant program was originally to provide small businesses with capital, Lewis said it has since evolved.
“Over time, we found that capital is great and, of course, always needed, but there are other resources that businesses just don’t have the capacity to take on,” Lewis said.
To address that, West Side United’s accelerator program offers additional resources to help businesses grow and scale. As part of its accelerator program, West Side United is piloting a program, pairing West Side businesses with young community members who serve as interns over the summer.
“The hope is that, as we continue to fund these businesses, that we’ll see more of them, especially some of our repeat grantees, being able to take that capital and really start to expand and grow their businesses,” Lewis said. She added in a statement, “When these businesses thrive, they are then able to further invest in the growth of our community.”
The grant program also provides grantees with coaching. Allies for Community Businesses, the administrator for the grant program, offers coaching to any business on the West Side. West Side United required those who applied for this year’s grant to partake in a 30-minute coaching session with Allies for Community Businesses to assess where the business is at and what its needs are.
“We believe that entrepreneurs from any background can start and grow businesses that create generational wealth for their families and communities, including near our organization’s home on Chicago’s West Side,” said Brad McConnell, CEO of Allies for Community Business, in a statement.
Grantees were required to have a revenue of $1 million or less and be located in one of ten West Side neighborhoods: Austin, Belmont Cragin, East Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, Lower West Side (Pilsen), Near Westside, North Lawndale, South Lawndale (Little Village), West Garfield Park and West Town.
A selection committee made up of community partners reviewed applicants and picked grantees based on the business’ connection to the West Side, community impact, business goals and how the business will use the grant.
“It will definitely make things easier,” Randle said, especially since Twisted Eggroll lost its main local vending partner with the closure of Foxtrot and Dom’s in April.
Randle, Burrell and Bush all thanked West Side United and their partners for the grant, and Burrell added, for being a part of the community: “I know it takes a village in order to make these things happen.”