In a shared kitchen workspace, below the hustle and bustle of the convention center at Chicago's McCormick Place, Jiwon McCartney and her school-aged son were cooking on Tuesday.
He had the day off because of the extreme temperatures, so she put him to work.
"I rope them all in. I have three [kids], and they’ve been volunteering since they were little," said McCartney.
Today, they're busy.
"Whatever falls off the truck, whatever is in surplus that we happen to rescue. Today, we rescued probably about 10 pallets of teriyaki beef," said McCartney.
In addition to beef, she's tossing a kale salad and cutting fragrant garlic bread.
"We have Maggiano's bread in here," she said with a big smile.
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McCartney calls the food "rescued." That means instead of a landfill, the protein, vegetables, bread and even dessert she's using from area restaurants, caterers and distributors ends up in her kitchen.
McCartney wears many hats. She owns Burger Alley Chicago in the South Loop. She's also the founder of Fight2Feed, the organization she's cooking for on this bitterly cold day.
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"[It's] a nonprofit organization that feeds our community in need. It’s anybody struggling, all while reducing food waste," said McCartney.
"Ninety-nine percent of our food is coming from donations and rescues. So, we’re about 20,000 pounds of food rescued. We are now deploying about 1,400 to 1,500 meals a week to the community."
There are other volunteers in the kitchen, too.
Chi Care, another nonprofit, will hand-deliver all of her carefully packed meals to several warming centers in Chicago.
"We cook it, they have the bandwidth to deploy it," she said.
Maggie O'Keefe and Faraz Sardharia will distribute the meals to the Cultural Center, Harold Washington Library and the warming center at 10 S. Kedzie in Garfield Park.
"We’re doing about 220 meals," said Sardharia. "We’ve served over 700,00 meals in the last six months."
And the need is great. Chi Care was created during the COVID pandemic to solve a growing crisis, feeding unhoused Chicagoans.
Now, there are thousands of migrants who not only need shelter but also food.
"I can’t express the smiles, the joy people feel when they see our Chi Care van roll up," said O'Keefe. "They’re so grateful to have a hot meal."
McCartney and Sardharia have decades of combined experience in food service, each with a deep rolodex of contacts in the industry they've now leveraged to make an even bigger impact.
"We have networked with so many chefs and restaurants and food brands because of the pandemic," said McCartney.
And as the food donations grow, they hope their network of volunteers will too, so they can continue serving an ever-growing need in Chicago.
"If we had the bodies in the kitchen, sweat equity, we could do this seven days a week," said McCartney.
