BENEFIT CHICAGO FUNDS LOCAL BUSINESSES

Darius Jones
Darius Jones

BENEFIT CHICAGO FUNDS LOCAL BUSINESSES

By Christopher Shuttlesworth

Benefit Chicago Executive Director William Towns

announced on May 16, 2017, that the company would give

$12 million in loans to six Chicago area organizations,

which included Garfield Produce Company, located in

the Westside area on 401 N. Trumbull Ave.

The for-profit produce company, which was created

in 2014, “is an indoor, vertical hydroponic vegetable farm”

that serves the community by creating second chance opportunities and helping formerly incarcerated citizens

land sustainable employment, according to a Benefit Chicago

press release.

“The company was built so we could create jobs and bring

wealth within the East Garfield Park community, meaning

hiring from the community and creating job opportunities for

individuals who had failures with employment in the past,”

said Darius Jones, who is the vice president and general manager of Garfield Produce Company.

Jones shared with the Citizen how he has been

incarcerated several times in the past, but says he didn’t let his past stop him from reaching his future goals.

“It’s 2017 and I’m the Vice President and General Manager

of this start-up business and currently have a $500,000

budget,” Jones said. “In 2010, I was 20 years old, being convicted and [I had] to sit in maximum prison for two years.

But now I’m 27 years old and I’m running my own company with people of influence.” He added “So, coming from East Garfield Park and being someone who has been incarcerated and a gangbanger who has sold drugs and went to jail more than 10 times as a teenager, I thought my life was over.”

Jones continued to explain that his new found life as a business owner only came by surrounding himself with positive people who believed in him.

“I had people to guide me into this success and I want to be that same person,” he said. “I think it’s important to surround people with opportunity. I changed my life because I had opportunity and people to show me that I had opportunity. When I was making minimum wage, I didn’t realize that I had an opportunity to do something awesome. I just thought ‘This sucks making minimum wage.’”

Jones said he believes it’s important not to give up on people and invest in local communities by giving people second chance opportunities.

“Having this opportunity to give back to young people or older people and be like, ‘Hey, I’ve been in your shoes and I know making minimum sucks but just seven years ago I was making minimum wage and now I run my own company,’” Jones said.

He explained that the $500,000 Garfield Produce Company received from the Benefit Chicago Fund will go into the 6,000 square foot warehouse on Trumbull and Franklin, and the facility will be turned into a model cookie-cutter for other low-income neighborhoods in the city.

“It’s really more of a passion project and is less about making money,” Jones said. “As a for-profit company, our focus is on the bottom line to make money. But as we succeed and become cash-flow positive, the cash that we make will go back into investing into employees and the business.”

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