Coleman Foundation Grantee Wins Chicago Neighborhood Development Award

Since they were first awarded in 1995, the Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards have celebrated projects and efforts that improved communities in the Chicago area.  The 2020 winners, recently recognized in an online event, included a project funded in part by The Coleman Foundation.  Accion Chicago and the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago (ICNC) were awarded The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award for Outstanding Non-Profit Neighborhood Real Estate Project.

In March of 2017, The Coleman Foundation awarded Accion a grant of $200,000 towards the $34 million budget to launch The Hatchery.  The facility opened in December of 2018 with kitchens, storage, meeting space, and financial services that support and serve the needs of food entrepreneurs while also bringing investment to Chicago’s East Garfield neighborhood.  It contains 54 private kitchens which can be leased by the year and six shared kitchen spaces available by the hour, dry and cold storage, loading docks and meeting space.  Accion Chicago relocated its headquarters to The Hatchery and in partnership with ICNC it delivers workshops and educational seminars so that food entrepreneurs can “grow in place.”