He’s fighting food insecurity. His approach? Inspired by Amazon

For many people, the idea of being food insecure is abstract. But Dion Dawson has lived it.

Growing up in Englewood, on Chicago’s South Side, his family was often homeless – and many times, he didn’t know where his next meal was coming from.

“There were times we went hungry. There were times we only ate, you know, once that day, “ Dawson said.

Food pantries were a lifeline, but he dreaded visiting them with his mother.

“We’re in line hours before it even opens,” he said. “It was a lot of canned goods, ramen and ultra processed foods. … I didn’t have a favorite fruit growing up.”

He remembers waiting in line outside in the rain and snow. For him, the experience was humiliating, no matter the weather.

“You’re not treated as if you’re a person. You’re kind of a number,” he said.

Since 2020, Dawson has been building a better way of providing food to those in need. Today, his nonprofit, Dion’s Chicago Dream , employs dozens of community members who deliver more than 80,000 pounds of free, fresh produce to more than 5,400 households every week. The result is a dependable source of fresh food that helps recipients live healthier, less stressful lives.

Dawson’s approach turns the food pantry model on its head. He describes it as a blend of HelloFresh and Amazon.

Instead of relying on donated, shelf stable food, like most pantries, his nonprofit buys produce from local vendors and farmers, as well as a regional supplier. This allows them to control their supply chain and ensure top quality for their recipients.

“What they’re receiving here, for free, is fresher than what they would get at the store that they would pay for,” he said.

The produce ranges from pomegranates to pineapples, spinach to Swiss chard.

“It’s bright, it’s beautiful. And all of that is intentional,” Dawson said. “We want you to feel compelled to use it and to eat it.”

The logistics are complicated. Six days a week, produce arrives at the nonprofit’s headquarters and is assembled into colorful boxes. At 4 a.m. the next morning, those boxes are loaded into vans and delivered across the city – either to a recipient’s doorstep or one of several Dream Vaults – Amazon-inspired lockers at local stores where residents can access them at their convenience. Every step is tracked via the group’s own tech platform, Cosmic Crate, and recipients receive text alerts about their delivery’s status.

It’s all designed to be efficient, effective, and treat residents with dignity. For Dawson, that’s the point.

“Dion’s Chicago Dream is about meeting people where they are,” he said.

Unlike other nonprofits, the group never uses volunteers. Instead, members of his “Dream Team” – currently 56 people – come from local areas and are paid a minimum of $20 an hour. Dawson says this creates a more reliable workforce and brings living-wage jobs to communities where they’re needed.

“You want to not only put food into the neighborhood, you want to put money back into the neighborhood,” he said. “It’s about giving your community the best possible chance to succeed.”

Dawson believes this work is his calling, but finding it wasn’t easy. After his unstable childhood, he joined the Navy, serving six years as a mass communications specialist. But when he returned home in 2015, the transition to civilian life was difficult. Suffering from PTSD, he lived out of his car for a time. While visiting a food pantry at the local V.A. hospital, he had a realization.

“In 30 years, nothing had changed,” he said. “We hadn’t found a better way to feed people.”

The observation stayed with him. Then, in the summer of 2020, Dawson was working nights for Amazon, a co-worker asked him what he was doing to celebrate Juneteenth.

“On a whim I said, ‘We’re going to feed 100 families,’ Dawson said. “I had no idea how I was going to do it.”

He started a GoFundMe and ended up giving away more than 800 pounds of food to 96 households. For Dawson, it was life changing.

“It was the probably the greatest day of my life, ” he said. “I literally decided that I would just chase that feeling again.”

Weeks later, he filed the paperwork for Dion’s Chicago Dream and soon launched Project Dream Fridge – a community refrigerator in Englewood that he stocked every morning with free fruits, vegetables and water. In early 2021, the group began its signature program, Dream Deliveries, bringing produce to homes on three blocks in Englewood. Since then, his work has evolved on a grand scale.

Now, 12 colorful vans deliver thousands of 10-pound boxes of produce to more than 180 zip codes across the Chicago metro area every week.

Dawson doesn’t just measure success by how much produce has been delivered; he wants to know if the recipients are satisfied. So every two weeks, his team’s community health workers reach out to every household, collecting scores about the delivery, quality of produce, and even stress levels. Participants report being extremely happy with the service and say their stress about food has declined by more than 80%.

The group is also part of the national Food is Medicine movement – an approach where doctors prescribe healthy food to low-income patients. The team now works with healthcare systems to deliver medically-tailored boxes to people suffering from conditions like heart disease and diabetes. These patients have shown documented benefits, including nearly 40% remission in diabetes and 36% normalized cholesterol.

“We’ve seen lower glucose levels, we’ve seen weight loss,” Dawson said. “We’ve seen change in lives.”

Michelle Watson, a resident of a senior home, looks forward to the deliveries each week.

“The cost of food today is ridiculous, so this helps me a lot,” she said. “I eat a lot of fruit now – and vegetables.”

Retiree Sheila Cooper appreciates having the produce delivered since it can be difficult for her to get to a store. Her favorite? Beets.

“I have high blood pressure, and when I make me some beet juice – mmmm. Off the chain.”

Dawson’s team currently works in a 900-square-foot space in a former YMCA. But this December, the organization will enter a new era with the opening of its new headquarters, Dreamville. This 20,000-square-foot campus in Englewood, housed in a former mattress factory, will have much more space for food packing and cold storage. It will enable the group to expand its work – and hire more people – and the facility will also have amenities for the neighborhood, including a co-working hub and a community gathering space. Eventually Dawson hopes to replicate this model in other cities.

And the need is increasing. Costs of food are rising, while cuts to SNAP have ended federal benefits to nearly 200,000 Chicago residents. Last month, the Greater Chicago Food Depository released its 2026 Hunger in Chicago report, which found that 36% of the city’s households are food insecure, as well as nearly one in two families with children and more than 60% of Black residents.

More than 4,300 people are now on Dion’s Chicago Dream waitlist – a fact that motivates Dawson every day.

“People need to eat, and they need to eat quality food to live longer,” he said. “The heart of our work is about the people.“

Want to get involved? Check out the Dion’s Chicago Dream website and see how to help.

To donate to Dion’s Chicago Dream via Pledge, click here

对许多人来说，粮食不安全的概念很抽象。但迪翁·道森却亲身经历过。

他在芝加哥南区恩格尔伍德长大，他的家人经常无家可归——很多时候，他都不知道下一顿饭在哪里。

“我们有时会挨饿。有时我们一天只吃一顿饭，”道森说。

食物救济站是他的救命稻草，但他很害怕和母亲一起去那里。

“我们好几个小时前就开始排队了，”他说。“卖的都是罐头食品、方便面和超加工食品……我从小就没有特别喜欢的水果。”

他记得当时在雨雪中排队等候。对他来说，无论天气如何，这都是一种屈辱的经历。

他说：“你在这里不被当人看待，你只是个数字。”

自2020年以来，道森一直致力于探索一种更好的方式，为有需要的人提供食物。如今，他创办的非营利组织“迪翁的芝加哥之梦”（Dion's Chicago Dream）雇佣了数十名社区成员，每周向超过5400户家庭免费配送超过8万磅的新鲜农产品。这使得受助者能够获得可靠的新鲜食物来源，从而拥有更健康、更轻松的生活。

道森的做法彻底颠覆了传统的食品救济站模式。他将其描述为HelloFresh和亚马逊的结合体。

与大多数食品救济站依赖捐赠的保质期长的食品不同，他的非营利组织从当地商贩、农民以及区域供应商处购买农产品。这使他们能够掌控供应链，确保为受助者提供最优质的食品。

他说：“他们在这里免费获得的东西，比他们在商店里花钱买到的东西更新鲜。”

农产品种类繁多，从石榴到菠萝，从菠菜到瑞士甜菜，应有尽有。

“它色泽鲜艳，色泽漂亮。这一切都是我们刻意为之，”道森说。“我们希望你忍不住想要使用它，想要品尝它。”

物流运作十分复杂。每周六天，农产品运抵这家非营利组织的总部，并被装入色彩缤纷的箱子。第二天凌晨四点，这些箱子被装上货车，运送到城市的各个角落——要么送到收件人家门口，要么送到“梦想宝库”（Dream Vaults）——这些类似亚马逊的储物柜设在当地商店，居民可以随时取用。整个配送过程都通过该组织自主研发的技术平台“宇宙宝箱”（Cosmic Crate）进行追踪，收​​件人会收到关于配送状态的短信提醒。

这一切的设计都是为了高效、有效，并尊重居民的尊严。对道森来说，这才是关键所在。

“迪翁的芝加哥之梦就是要走到人们身边，”他说。

与其他非营利组织不同，该组织从不使用志愿者。相反，他的“梦之队”（目前有56人）的成员都来自当地，他们的时薪至少为20美元。道森表示，这能打造一支更可靠的劳动力队伍，并为需要工作的社区带来足以维持生计的就业机会。

他说：“你不仅要为社区提供食物，还要为社区带来资金。这关乎如何让你的社区拥有成功的最佳机会。”

道森认为这份工作是他的使命，但找到它并非易事。童年时期生活动荡不安，之后他加入了海军，担任了六年大众传播专家。但2015年退伍回家后，他很难适应平民生活。由于患有创伤后应激障碍（PTSD），他一度住在车里。在一次去当地退伍军人医院的食物救济站时，他突然意识到了这一点。

“30年来，一切都没有改变，”他说。“我们还没有找到更好的养活人们的方法。”

这件事一直萦绕在他心头。后来，在2020年夏天，道森在亚马逊上夜班，一位同事问他打算如何庆祝六月节。

“我当时一时兴起，说‘我们要给100个家庭提供食物’，”道森说。“我完全不知道该怎么做。”

他发起了一项GoFundMe众筹活动，最终向96户家庭捐赠了超过800磅的食物。对道森来说，这改变了他的人生。

“那可能是我人生中最美好的一天，”他说。“我当时就下定决心，一定要再次体验那种感觉。”

几周后，他提交了“迪翁的芝加哥之梦”的申请文件，并很快启动了“梦想冰箱”项目——在恩格尔伍德社区设立了一个冰箱，每天早上他都会在那里免费补充水果、蔬菜和水。2021年初，该组织启动了其标志性项目“梦想配送”，为恩格尔伍德三个街区的居民送去新鲜蔬果。自此，他的工作规模迅速扩大。

现在，12 辆色彩鲜艳的货车每周都会将数千箱 10 磅重的农产品运送到芝加哥大都会区 180 多个邮政编码区域。

道森衡量成功的标准并非仅仅在于农产品配送量，他还想了解受助者是否满意。因此，他的团队每两周都会安排社区卫生工作者走访每户家庭，收集关于配送情况、农产品质量甚至压力水平的评分。参与者表示对这项服务非常满意，并称他们在食物方面的压力下降了80%以上。

该团队也是全国“食物即良药”运动的参与者——这项运动提倡医生为低收入患者开具健康食品处方。目前，该团队正与医疗系统合作，为患有心脏病和糖尿病等疾病的患者提供量身定制的营养食品盒。这些患者的获益已得到证实，包括近40%的糖尿病病情得到缓解，36%的胆固醇水平恢复正常。

“我们看到血糖水平降低了，我们看到体重减轻了，”道森说。“我们看到了生活的改变。”

住在养老院的米歇尔·沃森每周都盼望着送货上门。

“现在的食品价格太离谱了，所以这对我帮助很大，”她说。“我现在吃很多水果和蔬菜。”

退休人士希拉·库珀很喜欢送货上门的服务，因为她去商店购物不太方便。她最喜欢哪种蔬菜？甜菜根。

“我有高血压，但当我给自己榨点甜菜根汁的时候——嗯……简直太棒了。”

道森的团队目前在一个由基督教青年会改建的900平方英尺（约84平方米）的空间里办公。但今年12月，随着新总部“梦想之城”（Dreamville）的启用，该组织将迈入一个新时代。这座位于恩格尔伍德、占地2万平方英尺（约1860平方米）的园区，由一座旧床垫厂改造而成，将拥有更大的食品包装和冷藏空间。这将使该组织能够扩展业务，并雇佣更多员工。此外，该设施还将为周边社区提供便利设施，包括联合办公空间和社区聚会场所。道森希望最终能在其他城市复制这种模式。

而且需求还在不断增长。食品价格上涨，而SNAP（补充营养援助计划）的削减导致近20万芝加哥居民失去了联邦福利。上个月，大芝加哥食品银行发布了《2026年芝加哥饥饿状况报告》，报告显示，该市36%的家庭面临食品安全问题，近一半有孩子的家庭和超过60%的黑人居民也面临同样的问题。

迪翁的芝加哥梦想号候补名单上现在已有超过 4300 人——这一事实每天都在激励着道森。

他说：“人们需要吃饭，而且需要吃优质食物才能活得更久。我们工作的核心是人。”

想参与其中吗？请访问迪翁芝加哥梦想网站，了解如何提供帮助。

如需通过 Pledge 向 Dion 的芝加哥之梦捐款，请点击此处。