When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, chefs Kim Calichio and her husband, Omar Bravo Pavia, lost their food industry jobs. Calichio had to shut down her Queens-based cooking and gardening programs and Bravo Pavia was let go from his job as a restaurant chef. That left the couple with two young children and no steady source of income. But some of their peers — many of whom did not qualify for stimulus payments or unemployment insurance — had it even worse.
As friends and former colleagues called, asking whether they knew of any jobs, the couple, who lived in Woodside, Queens, decided that “we couldn’t just sit there and watch,” Bravo Pavia said. “We had an idea of, ‘How do we do something, but with the community?’” So began a mutual aid effort that has evolved into Connected Chef, a grassroots nonprofit providing affordable, locally sourced groceries to Queens neighbors.
The organization’s strong roots in the community have meant its produce continues to be sought out despite concerns about fresh fruits and vegetables following the recent cyclospora outbreak – perhaps even more so, as the co-founders reported a slight rise in foot traffic to its fresh market, also in Woodside. Some health experts have suggested that sourcing from local growers can help reduce the risk of cyclospora linked to large commercial wash facilities or imported produce.
“This outbreak is yet another example of why a community-rooted food system with locally sourced food is the answer to so many food-related troubles we see,” Calichio said in an email, adding that Connected Chef has put out a newsletter and social media posts letting neighbors know their products have been unaffected. “Our community knows we source through trusted relationships, and that trust has held.”
Building a model for community action
Back in 2020, Calichio had already planned to open a community kitchen, but the pandemic put those plans on hold. Instead, she and Bravo Pavia distributed a survey to neighbors as the lockdowns began, asking people about their food needs, including allergies and household size. They wanted to ensure they were serving people who lacked access to government assistance while avoiding questions that could expose respondents’ immigration status. Through the surveys, they also learned that people with ties to Egypt, for instance, and those with ties to Mexico both cook with zucchini. That kind of feedback system later became core to Connected Chef’s model.
The pair raised money to buy the food that was needed, largely from friends and neighbors in Queens who worked remotely or had retirement income. They bought food from neighborhood businesses and organized volunteers to pack grocery boxes for those in need. Their restaurant backgrounds gave them experience in wholesale purchasing, logistics, inventory management and large-scale packing. They started packing out of a friend’s closed bakery in April and moved to the parking lot of a business closed by the lockdowns a few months later, when they were putting together about 2,000 boxes weekly.
The distribution service helped both the recipients of the food and the people providing it. “It was what people were looking for,” Calichio said, when “people felt paralyzed and powerless.”
Still, that sense of camaraderie, she said, outlasted the pandemic. Many of the volunteers stayed involved, returning as supporters when she and Bravo Pavia launched Connected Chef’s Lifeline Groceries in October. That month, they moved to a space on Fifth Street, where they turned an abandoned lot into a distribution center and community garden. They operated there until they moved to Connected Chef’s current Woodside headquarters and market last year.
At the core of the business is their Lifeline Groceries service, through which they sell boxes of fresh, locally sourced food on a sliding-scale pricing model, in which customers pay what they think they can afford.
Nonprofit on paper, grassroots at heart
Connected Chef later became an official tax-exempt nonprofit. The status allowed it to expand beyond community-powered donations and raise money through grants and other funding sources to grow its operations. Calichio and Bravo Pavia tapped their mutual aid network for neighbors with nonprofit and legal expertise, later connecting newer organizations to those same resources.
Their grant-writing and relationship-building skills became crucial a year or two later, as the pandemic dragged on but volunteer participation declined and donations fell. Those connections helped them secure support from a local funder.
Connected Chef’s model and roots stay grounded in mutual aid and organizing, Calichio said. From the start, she and Bravo Pavia wanted to avoid relying entirely on grants or government funding.
“We knew this during the pandemic, and this continues to be true: Those sources of funding are not always reliable and can get pulled out from under you very quickly and without notice,” she said. That’s also why they source from local small farms, vetting their practices and working with growers who use organic methods but cannot afford USDA organic certification. These include the Grandpa Farm and Angel Farm in Goshen, both in upstate New York.
Solidarity outside the box
Connected Chef’s Lifeline Groceries offers a range of options: free “solidarity” boxes for Queens families in need who are not eligible for government help (a category for which there’s currently a waitlist), $20 discounted boxes for neighbors facing financial barriers and higher-cost boxes that subsidize food for others.
None of the options require proof of financial need. Asked whether they worried some people would take advantage of the honor system, Calichio said it’s not their job to police their customers.
“There are always going to be people who question the legitimacy of someone’s choice, like ‘Oh, do you really need free groceries or do you really need a discount here?’” Calichio said, especially when those receiving subsidized foods own an iPhone or a car. “But nobody knows their experience, and living in New York City with money is really hard, and so to live in New York City on $30,000 a year or less is near impossible.”
That trust was also reflected in what happened once the website explained the different pricing tiers. For example, the “Breaking Even” category, $30 for individual box and $37 for a family box, is for neighbors who can make ends meet but cannot save money, eat out or spend on entertainment. “Market Rate” is for people with a steady income and who are paying off debt or student loans. After learning more about which tier best fit their circumstances, about 36% of customers moved from a lower-priced tier to the highest-priced category, according to Calichio.
“They were like, ‘Oh, I’m actually paying less than I should,’” she said. “People want to support their community — they just need a place to be able to do that.”
