
In 2017, La Casa Norte (LCN) will expand its work on food, nutrition and community hunger with the opening of a Nutrition Center in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. La Casa Norte’s Nutrition Center will include a food pantry, a community café, and a demonstration kitchen space to be utilized for nutrition and health education. These programs will serve individuals and families of all backgrounds in the greater Humboldt Park community.
This is a full time position, Tuesday – Saturday with some evening hours required.
Expected Goals and Objectives
Goal One: To execute the day to day operations of the Food Pantry and Community Café, creating a safe, dignified and inclusive experience for clients.
- Working on site at the food pantry and community café during hours of operation, ensuring a highly organized and equitable food distribution process
- Implementing policies and practices for food acquisition, storage, preparation and distribution that prioritize client needs and IL food safety compliance
- Working consistently within LCN’s mission, vision, philosophy of service, including Harm Reduction and Trauma-Informed Care Frameworks
- Coordinating intake of client information; accurately tracking and documenting all services provided
- Linking clients as needed to other LCN programs and outside supportive services such as rental assistance, clothing closet, legal aid services, substance abuse and mental health counseling, etc
- Supervising and engaging with volunteers in the food pantry and community café during each volunteer shift
- Planning menus each week for the community café and ensuring the execution of those recipes and nutrition standards
- Working in partnership with the Operations team to ensure food safety compliance and coordinate the logistics of food pickups and deliveries
Goal Two: To implement nutrition and health education activities in the Nutrition Center.
- Supervising the day-to-day operations of nutrition and health education programming for community members
- Engaging with community members to discover what types of educational programming is most successful in addressing their needs and interests
- Assisting with the adaptation and continuous improvement of programming
Goal Three: To increase community knowledge and utilization of LCN’s Nutrition Center programs through targeted outreach efforts.
- Implementing an outreach campaign to inform Humboldt Park residents of Nutrition Center services, including (but not limited to) street outreach, door knocking and involvement with local schools and churches
- Assisting with planning and executing events that bring community members into the Nutrition Center space and introduce them to LCN programming, in partnership with Community Engagement and Development teams
In addition to the responsibilities listed above, all La Casa Norte employees are responsible for contributing to the overall success of La Casa Norte by:
- Attending weekly staff meetings, monthly staff meetings and other staff trainings as assigned
- Participating in La Casa Norte’s fundraising events
- Performing other duties as needed