About Us
History
2021.
The Good Food Collaborative was formed in the spring of 2021. Throughout our short history, we have been focused on helping those that are food insecure, promoting the use of whole foods, cooking together as a family, and demonstrating to people that you can grow your own food. In December of 2021, we received our official 501c3 status from the IRS.
2022.
In 2022, we operated our Mobile Food Pantry, delivering food to peoples’ homes in McDonough county. We delivered food to over 1,000 people each month in every corner of McDonough County. Thanks to our dedicated volunteers, we made over 14,400 food deliveries in 2022.
In late summer of 2022, we began thinking it was time to move beyond pandemic-mode and start to normalize our food programs. We began conversations with Roger Pavey, Executive Director of the Western Illinois Regional Council. We found that we shared an interest in helping the food insecure in McDonough County. WIRC offered to provide space in their building to open a storefront pantry. Currently, we have discontinued deliveries as we focus on our new storefront pantry.
2023 & Beyond.
We opened a new choice-based food pantry in March 2023–The Good Food Pantry. Our new storefront food pantry allows users to choose the food they want to eat—just like we all do at the grocery. Our storefront pantry resembles a small grocery store with regular grocery store shelving, small shopping carts and baskets, freezers and coolers of food, and fresh produce.
WIRC has been essential in our success with the pantry. They have been both supportive and helpful. When we got short on volunteers to help unload a large food delivery, WIRC staff jumped in and volunteered, literally forming a human conveyor belt from truck to freezer. WIRC is providing this space to us at no cost, and also allows us access and use of a large walk-in freezer and cooler. A special thank you to those at WIRC that help make this work.
We are currently serving almost 1,500 people in McDonough County, more than we were with our Mobile Food Pantry. Additionally, we are also partnering with the Macomb Community Gardens in a pilot project to grow fresh produce for our pantry. We have over 1,500 square feet under cultivation growing tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, broccoli, brussel sprouts and cabbage.
Our Vision
Food is an essential element in our daily lives. If you are hungry it’s hard to focus, it’s hard to be a good student and learn, it’s hard not to be worried where your next meal is coming from, especially if you are feeding children. We believe that everyone should have access to healthy food and have the understanding of how to use and prepare whole foods. We also believe in the power of local food production and how that can provide healthy food options. We live among some of the best farmland in the entire world. We hope to start conversations about how people can grow food themselves
Where We Work
The Good Food Collaborative operates the Good Food Pantry at 133 West Jackson St. in Macomb, Illinois. The Good Food Pantry is a choice-based pantry that is currently open two days a week. We are located in Western Illinois Regional Council’s building, where we also have our warehouse, one of our walk-in freezers, and a walk-in cooler. We are also growing produce for the pantry at the Macomb Community Garden’s location in Macomb. Currently we have tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, cabbage, broccoli and other produce under cultivation. We hope to bring all of this fresh produce to the pantry this summer.
Our Team
Board
Our board is a working board. All board members are actively involved in making the Good Food Collaborative work. Each board member uses their personal area of expertise in service of making GFC work. All board members know how to roll up their sleeves and do the work.
Staff
We are a lean team, we have three part-time employees. We also share a WIRC staff person, a critical member of our team.
