The Raíces y Alas food drive was held in the Siebel Center for Design on Saturday from 2-4 p.m. Admission was free, but guests were encouraged to bring non-perishable food, which would be donated to the students and families of a Chicago Public School. By the end of the event, two tables were filled with food donations.
It started when four students of the class BUS 401: Crafting Your Purpose in Business — Jonathon Jacome, Jesus Tinoco, Saul Torres and Isaiah Ketedji — were assigned to create a “purpose project.”
Purpose projects are businesses that give back to a community, so the group hosted a food drive for Carl Von Linné Elementary School. The food drive highlighted Latino culture by offering the free goods and services of the Latino-owned small businesses CJ the DJ, Gilberto Bl3ndz, Nails by Sofia, Alquicira Tattoo, Botanos El Remedio and Project4Less.
Along with the other group members, Torres, senior in Business, invited the entrepreneurs to share their experiences at the event and to inspire students to start their own businesses. Torres said that the entrepreneurs discussed what sparked their interest in starting their business as they performed their services.
Torres said he was inspired to get involved in this project by his previous experience with philanthropy. During his senior year of high school during COVID-19, he worked with his city’s mayor to feed over 2,000 families. This made him aware of the food-insecure families in the Chicagoland area and want to keep helping them.
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“Just knowing that you were helping people out during such a tough time was very great,” Torres said.
Ketedji, graduate student studying accountancy, said that BUS 401 is about using business to create an impact beyond making money. He wants to use business to improve the lives of communities.
He started with University students, using Raíces y Alas to raise awareness of their talents and businesses.
“I hope to imbue the idea that we can create purpose as students, and we can make change through our actions into the people who come to this event,” Ketedji said.
Ketedji felt that in our current political climate, they should use the food drive to uplift the Latino community.
One way this was done was through music. Ketedji said that, after watching Bad Bunny’s performance at the Super Bowl, the group felt inspired to play his music at the fair.
“The idea of love being bigger than hate and a community event bringing people together from all over — we thought that was something that kind of connected to the event that we were doing,” Ketedji said.
Aylin Salgado, junior in Media, gave away homemade Mexican chamoy candy from her business, Botanas El Remedio. Salgado said that it can be difficult to convince people to attend charity events, and giving away free goods served as an incentive. She also said that she mainly chose to get involved to help out the Latino communities that are struggling.
“As a Latina, I feel that it’s my duty to do everything I can to help those in need,” Salgado said.
