Urban Dreams opening a food pantry in Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – A new food pantry is opening in Cedar Rapids.

Based in Des Moines, Urban Dreams has seven satellite offices around the state, with the latest in the City of Five Seasons.

Urban Dreams grew organically out of building authentic relationships with people in the community who were in transition and needed a place to go after five o’clock. The food pantry was born out of those honest conversations they had with their clients.

Izaah Knox is the executive director of Urban Dreams. He says it was in listening to their clients that trust was built.

“In high crime, high poverty, highly diverse, low income areas of town, we decided to just be open after hours,” Knox said, “Everything else shut down. So, open drug trade, violence, prostitution, things like that. So, we were like, ‘Let us be there to be open as a place for information and referral.'”

Knox says from there, the organization pivoted in and out of many different directions, in response to what their clients needed.

And now, Urban Dreams is taking that mission to Cedar Rapids.

Elizabeth Buch is the Cedar Rapids Site Coordinator and Talent Outreach Coordinator.

“What I really love about Urban Dreams is they get to know each others’ clients,” Buch said, “We don’t push any sort of support they don’t need or [for which] they don’t come to us directly. If we have a conversation with them, we let them know, ‘[These are] other opportunities that you could work with us as well.”

Urban Dreams has already placed and trained 16 clients in jobs with employers.

But Knox says that training is both at the grass roots and the grass tops levels.

“A lot of people in communities don’t go to places with good employment opportunities because of stories they’ve heard about that employer or aunts or uncles or grandmas or grandpas that have had bad experiences there so they don’t want to go,” Knox said.

Knox says that’s where they come in to help breakdown some of the barriers that employers may also have.

For tomorrow’s food pantry opening, Buch says that once again, authentic relationships will determine how far and how wide Urban Dreams’ services will go in Cedar Rapids.

Urban Dreams has partnered with HACAP for its food distribution. Urban Dreams food pantry will be open from 9:00 to 5:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Ladd Library.

But, like everything else within Urban Dreams, they will respond to the community if they need to expand those hours of operation.