Our pilot program kicked off with Adam and Nydia, of Drip & Culture located in Waukegan, Illinois.

We chose Drip & Culture owners, Adam Carson and Nydia Gonzalez-Carson, for the SBGI pilot to support their vision for their own business and their broader vision for Waukegan. Drip & Culture is a socially-minded coffee brand that is a catalyst for change in Waukegan and surrounding communities. The store is located inside of Supermercado Gonzalez, a family grocery store that has been in the community since 1994, which Adam and Nydia also manage.

Adam and Nydia moved back to Waukegan from Brooklyn, New York in early 2020 when they realized the impact COVID-19 would have on major cities. They came home to manage one of the family businesses, Supermercado Gonzalez. They wanted to create an extension of their home where folks feel welcomed and part of something bigger. Out of this dream, Drip & Culture was established.

Drip & Culture serves as more than just a coffee shop. Adam and Nydia have opened the space for other entrepreneurs to sell their goods. Whether it’s Queen B Empanadas selling on the weekends, Oats Gone Wild selling overnight oats in the cooler, or Silva Espadas fashion and art in the lounge area; the talent of the community is always being elevated in the space. LCCF realized early on that granting to Drip & Culture was more than granting to one small business. We were granting to multiple small businesses, to kindred entrepreneurial spirits with similar backgrounds and dreams, and to the community of Waukegan.

Using a social entrepreneurship lens, Adam and Nydia believe that they must invest their profits into ventures, organizations and people working daily to transform the context of social, political, economic and environ-mental action. Through this commitment, the couple hopes to be an example of how organic and grassroots activity can be a model for mobilizing change in similarly underinvested communities.

Drip & Culture’s Proposal & Project
Drip & Culture was granted $50,000 for a construction project to expand the physical footprint of the coffee shop inside of Supermercado Gonzalez. Their goal was to create better access for customers by relocating the coffee shop to the front of the store and installing a window for outside accessibility. Due to an unfortunate contracting experience, the recession and labor shortages, Drip & Culture and LCCF quickly decided to pivot from this proposal within the first couple months. The subsequent plan and impact were more than we could imagine.