There aren’t enough folks addressing food waste and hunger in America. Chris Dipnarine tells Nestor the amazing sustainability and food story of 4MyCity and feeding folks in West Baltimore through inspiration and perspiration on our annual “A Cup Of Soup Or Bowl” week of community triumphs.
Chris Dipnarine, originally from Trinidad and Tobago, discussed his sustainability project, “4 My City,” which addresses food waste and hunger in Baltimore. Chris shared his journey from working at Home Depot to founding the organization, which rescues and redistributes food, including fresh produce, to families in need. He highlighted the organization’s four-phase plan: food rescue, education, distribution, and composting. “4 My City” has rescued and distributed 260 million pounds of food, serving 11,000 families weekly. The organization also provides youth mentoring and community support, emphasizing the importance of fresh, healthy food.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
sustainability project, food waste, homeless support, immigrant story, food rescue, food insecurity, healthy food, youth mentoring, composting technology, food distribution, community support, food pantry, fresh produce, food donations, food sustainability
SPEAKERS
Chris Dipnarine, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 tasks in Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. And there’s nothing more positive than being here in Dundalk, where it cost us in in beautiful almost Paris. Point wants to claim Costas, but I’m not gonna let him do that, because it’s done dog. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. You have the magic eight ball, the lucky magic eight ball, as well as our friends at wise markets, we are creating awareness this week on a cup of soup or bowl for the Maryland Food Bank and feeding folks and doing good things. And we are completely showing off everyone in the community that’s doing amazing, amazing things, including this young man that has been sent to me, you know, Karen Sagal wrote to me, and then my buddy Chris forehand is gonna come on later on with the Towson torch. You have come highly recommended from three or four different angles. And I don’t know how I got you over here on 24 hours. Notice, that’s good to hear. But, you know, I first things first I heard you were from Trinidad Tobago, and then they and your your accent will be here, Chris in a minute. But I said, I love the food down in the islands. Have to do that. But the pronunciation of the patois and sort of that French Creole English, I saw your name, and I want to get this right, because I’m not gonna have any problem describing what you do or the name of for my city. You can remember that for my city, and I’ve heard about you, but I was wondering how to pronounce this. This great last name, Christopher dipne, A, R, I N, E, I thought step Noreen, but I what? But that’s American. Yeah,
Chris Dipnarine 01:35
that’s how it Americans. So your Trinity
Nestor Aparicio 01:39
Bongo. Tell everybody about because this is a little island. It’s beautiful. It’s
Chris Dipnarine 01:45
very mulch, multicultural Island, right? So, you know, believe it or not, like my family’s from India, like, you know, we have that whole Indian background, and we have African American genes. Man
Nestor Aparicio 01:55
knows a curry when he has one. I’ll tell you that right now, I even
Chris Dipnarine 01:58
found out I did that DNA thing. I even found out that German in me, so somehow, so maybe that’s iron in the name.
Nestor Aparicio 02:04
So you, you hail from Trinidad. I’ve heard your name around Baltimore. I’ve heard of this sustainability project that you talk about where I sort of call it seed to compost, right, like from the beginning of where food would come from through how it’s grown, sourced, harvest, fed, and then the trash component of destroying the earth. This is, um, I mean, you went to school for this at some point. I know, and I know you got an interesting background, but you’ve gone to the school of hard knocks. You’re trying to figure this. Yeah, I
Chris Dipnarine 02:37
worked, you know, listen, I moved here when I was 18 from Trinidad. $500 in my pocket, and I’m that true immigrant story. Man, start working in Home Depot, making $8 an hour. Come
Nestor Aparicio 02:46
here legally or illegally. Legally, legally. Now, how did you get here legally? Everybody? Give
Chris Dipnarine 02:50
me that, give me the student visa. So I had a visa, tourist visa. Came over, you know, spend some time in America. I love is that a dream? Every kid, everyone has a dream, man. I mean, listen, you know, growing up, I grew up very poor. I grew up, you know, impoverished in the country, broken home. For me, it was like You Ever Had you ever felt like you were bigger than somewhere? I’ve always felt like I was bigger than Trinidad, sad to say that way. But I always felt like I was meant for something bigger.
Nestor Aparicio 03:19
I think a lot of people on islands either feel one way or the I spent a lot of time in Jamaica, people from Venezuela. My father’s in Venezuela, so my father came here legally and then decided to go live his life back in Venezuela. Left me behind 40 years ago. But I think when you grow up on an island, you’re either really content exactly, but this is home and blue water is home, or I need to, I need to go, and I don’t, you know both kinds of people and a lot of people dream of leaving and never leave. You know those people as well, but for the people that do come here, that speak different, walk different, talk different, pray, different, think different, love, different, the humanity part of wanting to be in America is not to come here and rape and pillage. It’s to come here and contribute people. Come here to wanted to contribute
Chris Dipnarine 04:08
most people, most people that do come here come here to kind of change their lives, right? It’s a land of opportunity. I would say that that’s what I believe in America. You couldn’t talk about all other nonsense, man, but you have opportunity here in this country, regardless of race, color, create doesn’t matter. You can make it here. I don’t care what anybody else says, like, if you’re hard working, you can make here. I never went to school for sustainability. I saw a problem that I thought I could fix, and I launched my organization to fix it. That that’s kind of like my
Nestor Aparicio 04:41
for my city. It’s right here. I never you know. It’s almost like your name, badger, um, get rid of your background. You have a you have a really story. So you have a story to tell that it involves not such great things in some cases. And you get rid of your whole story. I
Chris Dipnarine 04:57
was driving up here just now in this Dundalk. Luck is nice to race up at nine here, back in the day, 9998 you were the one with the cars and stuff. So, I mean, I moved here and I was 18, you know, worked my way up through, you know, companies, Home Depot, lows. When
Nestor Aparicio 05:13
did you get
Chris Dipnarine 05:13
here? 99 919, 99
Nestor Aparicio 05:16
you’re 18 years old time. So you’re born 8081 Yep. So you come here and you just need to get a job, yeah, need to get the language, which is
Chris Dipnarine 05:23
academic English, right? Sure. Just need to get a job. And again, just started working my way up into different companies, became management, executive management, to then owning my own businesses, you know, I had a boat manufacturing businesses. Had a car shop, you know, speed shop. I said, you repair cars and work in cars.
Nestor Aparicio 05:40
You like to like fast cars. I love fast cars.
Chris Dipnarine 05:44
I love cars. Cars. Cars are my weakness. I you know, they
Nestor Aparicio 05:47
drive on the left in Trinidad.
Chris Dipnarine 05:52
So I again, I love cars. Work my way up in 2018 I witnessed a homeless person get killed in front of me, you know. And you know when you grow up poor and you come here and you be successful, this is something people don’t always tell you. When you become successful, no matter what you’re doing, you get out of your bad situation. Your life changes. You know, you disassociate yourself from certain things you you don’t live or try to live in same neighborhoods you try to live in. You don’t run in the same circles.
Nestor Aparicio 06:22
You try. You don’t race cars down, race
Chris Dipnarine 06:24
cars that no point really bought anymore. But your life changes, right? And you know, again, as I became successful, I got disconnected with how people really felt. That is trying to get where I’m at. You know that that struggle, right? And when I witnessed that homeless person get killed in front of me, I stopped. I was the only one that stopped. Everybody else was taking pictures of me in the street. I was in a full suit too. Man Calvin Klein suit, Spencer suit. Where did this happen? In Florida? Okay, for Lauder, Florida. Mike Voss is his name. Rest in peace, Mike. But I stopped. Everybody was taking pictures of me there, even when the cops showed up, they thought I was the one kill the guy. You know, it was a hit and run. The guy just drove off. I don’t even know if they ever caught the guy or not, but I stopped, and I rented help to this guy, and like, I was with the guy when, you know, unfortunately, he made his last breath and at that moment, man, I don’t know if he went in me or whatever, whatever the case may be, I decided I didn’t change my life. You know, funny enough, the next day, I posted on my social media just to go fund me, right? And I have wealthy friends, wealthy friends, you know, lots of family and stuff. One person donated on that go fund me from all the people I know. You know, you know, I said, because I was gonna pay for his funeral, right? So I said, let me try this. Go Fund Me thing. Let me just, what are you doing in Fort Lauderdale? At the time, I was living there, I’d moved there, so I was, I had an import, export business, and I was working on my boat business where we’re making a manufacturing some speed boats. So you ought to be in Florida. I mean, it’s the largest, right? Sure, yeah. So, yeah. I mean, you know, when I realized that, I realized that, you know, a lot of people were in my life that weren’t really connected to me for the right reasons, you know, you know, here I posted a sad story. I got a lot of likes and comments. All you did, blah, blah, but nobody supported me trying to help the guy or help the family, or, like, pay for his funeral or anything. And that really changed something in me, man. So actually sold most of the stuff I had closed on that business and I launched for my city. I bought a it was my mom’s car at the time, but I kind of, like paid it off. I had a 2013 Subaru Outback, and I just started, like, going around and asking people for the leftover food, and I would go to like the homeless camps in Baltimore and stuff. And I wanted to launch it here in Baltimore, because this city gave me everything I when I first moved to Trinidad, I moved here. Don’t ask me, why.
Nestor Aparicio 08:56
What brought you here?
Chris Dipnarine 08:58
I don’t even know. Man, I don’t even know. Did you know where this was? Did you have a map? I knew it was somewhere on the outskirts. We like
Nestor Aparicio 09:05
a raven fan or something. I didn’t even know
Chris Dipnarine 09:07
what American football was at the time, but the year after, they won the Super Bowl, and I became a Ravens fan.
Nestor Aparicio 09:13
But play soccer in your country. I do. That’s what they do.
Chris Dipnarine 09:17
I don’t even know why we moved here, man. I mean, you know, but again, you know, we ended up here in Baltimore, and it was a city that, you know, gave me everything from, you know, financial wealth to success in my career to, again, you know, being locked up, you know, going to jail here in Baltimore. Tell me that story. Ah, listen, I, you know, I was ignorant, you know, from driving cars and having tons of speeding tickets to driving away from, from, from cops to, you know, assault, you know what I mean, fighting in bars and clubs and stuff. That was me. I was troubled kid, man. I, you know, I was young. You had money, and you do dumb stuff. You know, that
Nestor Aparicio 09:52
was part of it, having the exit, having money too, having a good career, exactly, right? When you’re
Chris Dipnarine 09:57
young, you’re 2021, years old, and you. Making 80, 90,000 a year. I mean, you feel like you’re God, especially when you come from nothing, right, you know? I mean, when you come from nothing, you never had that kind of money I had. I went to a dealership and walked out with a brand new Mustang, man, brand new Viet Mustang. And that, in those days, 2000 that was like 21 grand. You can get a brand new Mustang right out the door. You know, shined. It shined brand new. You know, I backed it off the truck they had less than one mile long. How
Nestor Aparicio 10:26
did you learn to drive on the right hand side of the road here? You know, that’s what I want to know. I don’t trust these foreign drivers on the wrong side of
Chris Dipnarine 10:32
the road. You know, that was a challenge, but it was fun. I’ve driven
Nestor Aparicio 10:35
in Australia and I’ve driven in Ireland, I’ve driven on the wrong side of the road, but I’ve never tried it like in the islands, because people know offense crazy like Jamaica, you don’t drive anywhere in Jamaica, the two lanes
Chris Dipnarine 10:49
were easy. When you get to those four lanes is kind of like when it got confusing, like, what that where, where do I we flew
Nestor Aparicio 10:55
to Australia. My wife and I, before her cancer, about 2012 13, and the whole time we talked about going over, this is when Google Maps started to work on phones. I said, I’m the navigator, you’re the driver. She’s like, ah, you know, I never driven on the wrong side of the car, but I’ll figure I’ll be better at it. I’m like, All right, I don’t want to drive on the wrong side of the road when we get over to Australia. And my wife was, she was about to have cancer, so I think she was battling some things. She had a headache at the airport, and the morning we were going to the airport to get the rental car in Sydney, she didn’t feel well, and we got the car, and literally, when we rented the car, we rented it in her name, but I went to the garage, and she’s like, I don’t feel well, and I’m like, I guess I’m driving, so, like, I had to figure out moving to the other side of the car, on the other side of the road. I don’t know how I made it out of the garage at the airport, because once I got out to the road, I’m like, oh my god, I’m in Sydney, Australia. I’m on the wrong side of the car, the wrong side of the road. Just driving alone in another culture would not lead me to want to do it fast. I
Chris Dipnarine 12:01
I just did, just got my license in Trinidad to just, you just learn, and you get your license over there, so you now practice them to drive all I said you can’t drive anywhere fast in Trinidad. Kid then, oh, man, that’s the problem in those islands. You drive fast everywhere. Now the rules a little change back then, listen the rules. The rules were cleared and should not yourself
Nestor Aparicio 12:22
in trouble and you wound up. Give give me either your your legal story, because I think people just think I this kid’s trouble, lock him up, throw him in jail. Now, hold on a second. You’re human. You had to deal with the legal system, incarceration, lawyers, money. This the coming out of incarceration and finding a gig, right? Like
Chris Dipnarine 12:45
it was just like a deal too, wasn’t? I got locked up for a long time, put you in the pen. You stay for a day, you know? But that’s
Nestor Aparicio 12:51
on your record, right? On your record? Yes, okay, so you weren’t really locked up. You were just locked up. For me, you did wrong. Did wrong. We all did wrong, right? Where is that moment of reckoning to say, one night in jails enough. I don’t need two. I don’t need three. I don’t, you know, listen,
Chris Dipnarine 13:07
in 2000 I think was 2003 or 2004 I locked up like three times that year for, I think one was like reckless driving and drunk driving DUI, which was a stupid move, very stupid move. I 100% you know, don’t condone that, but we
Nestor Aparicio 13:23
talked 22 years ago, though, right? Yeah, you get a chance to change your life. That’s part of your story.
Chris Dipnarine 13:29
Time was, was in the club gonna fight with the bomb surge. Didn’t like how he was, you know, touching me and moving me. But, yeah, again, you know, ignorant kid.
Nestor Aparicio 13:37
But you know, there’s a lot of those stories in Dundalk, and a lot of those people get out and they can’t get a job because of one stupid thing. Exactly right, exactly right.
Chris Dipnarine 13:46
You know, again, lucky, you know, I had that. You know, most of my career was really self employed, like I always had some type of side business going on, so I didn’t really care about the corporate jobs. Corporate jobs was, you know, stability, right? You know, when my daughter, when my ex wife, told me she was pregnant with my daughter, that was my shit. I gotta change my life. Okay?
Nestor Aparicio 14:07
I had a pregnant girlfriend at 15, so I’m wasting, yeah,
Chris Dipnarine 14:12
2000 my daughter’s born in 2004 you know, so 2003 you know, when she told me she was pregnant with her, that was, like it. That was my aha moment. Like, you know what? I got a daughter. I gotta, you know, and daughters change you. You have a daughter boys, I think you’re a little bit more lenient when you have a girl. I feel like, as a father, like, it changes you. You get a little more protected, yeah, a little bit more plus, you know, you want to show her, like, how she wants to be treated, you know, I mean, or how she should be treated. So you’re you get a little bit more protective, you get a little bit more disciplined and stuff. As a father, I think if you have a daughter, and I see that change with my kids. You have boys and have a girl, and I’m totally different my girl compared to my
Nestor Aparicio 14:53
now, how do your kids? How’s family? It’s my daughter. His daughter’s 2020, all right, yeah, I did the math. I.
Chris Dipnarine 15:00
My son was, is January? He was just here, January 28 he just turned 12. And then I have a nine year old. Look at three kids.
Nestor Aparicio 15:10
Chris dipne, Ryan is here. He is of Trinidad. His great accent, by the way, reminds me of all the soccer players that I’ve ever had on either Well, that would be like, chin up. Who was from like, Trinidad. We have people from Bermuda, though, guys from Bermuda, all the island, anybody from Trinidad? Oh, I know. I have, I have to think about who that was. But, you know, I had a young guy named Joe who went to calver Hall in the 90s. I’ve been on the radio 33 years. He was my original phone caller in 96 789, because he knew the Premiership. He was the one guy in this city 30 years ago that watched international soccer. Now it’s on the premierships on every Saturday like but his name was Joe, and he was from Trinidad and Tobago, and I’ll never forget this. Your country is really good with the bells, right? The drums, steel pants. So the Trinidad and Tobago steel drum orchestra is over by Memorial Stadium in the neighborhood over there, out of a church group. My wife loves this. The steel drums are favorite thing in the whole world, and that’s a Trinidad Tobago thing. But in that neighborhood over there, this guy, Joe, let’s say, is 1996 or seven or eight in my youth, in my you know, I’m on the radius 30 got 30 years ago. His name was Joe. He invited me to his father’s home for Thanksgiving, because they were from Trinidad, and I knew the food would be good. So he said, You’re going to come over to my father’s house. My father’s going to make it. Trinidad, thanks. It was a Thanksgiving meal in America, and I went, I’ll never I remember watching football. I remember watching watching the Cowboys play in the afternoon at his house and having this Trinidadian feast going on. So I love the island people. Man, island life is good. They’re not all doing what you’re doing for my city. He’s wearing it here this year, over on the southwest side of town. Yeah, and, you know, and I’ve talked in, you know, freely about the Maryland Food Bank and every pantry in every community here, and I’m having them all along, whether it’s Catonsville assistance, I just had St John or St John’s Lutheran Church, they have a food pantry, food sustainability and food not exactly what you’re doing, but part of what you’re Yeah, yeah. So that’s one
Chris Dipnarine 17:24
segment. So the Ford and the for my city is really for a four phase sustainability plan. So you, you talked about it a little bit earlier. We’re closing the entire loop on food waste, right? So when I wanted to launch my organization and I started rescuing food and just giving it out, I saw the like, how massive the problem of food waste is. I mean, we waste about six, about 40% that’s about 60 million tons of food.
Nestor Aparicio 17:47
40% of everything that is edible, that
Chris Dipnarine 17:50
is produced, just goes to waste, right? So you just spend all this money to grow it, to package it, is that rotting and just throw it away? No, it’s actually good food. That’s the problem with it. It’s really good food. The food is not, anyway, not edible. So if you come to our pantry, you’ll see it’s everything that we distribute. It’s all edible food. We primarily focus on like fruits and vegetables, though. So this is a segment where most other food bags and food pantry, they kind of stay away from, because it’s very like with produce and fruits and vegetables, you have to turn it very fast. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 18:24
the greatest example would be this week. I’m telling folks, if you come out, bring canned goods for Maryland food bank. And that’s great. And I my father starved as a child, like in 1929 my father and I had thought about this. And third, my husband dead 30 years. I hadn’t thought about it and won the whole Super Bowl. I did 27 of these. I’d be in New Orleans today if it weren’t for Chad Steele. Chad Steele threw me out. Hey, dude, I’m doing I’m doing the good work here, because I’m not in New Orleans as we this is better, y’all. 100% better, 100% better. And I started thinking about what, what, what charity, what I want to support in the first week of February. That makes sense. And the coats and the and the gloves, we do that November, right? Food Drive. Everybody does it. Canned goods in December, Christmas, we’re thinking hams. We’re thinking turkey. We’re thinking February comes. It’s cold as hell. There’s a snow storm on the way, and all these pantries have been ravaged through the holidays, used during January, and nobody’s given anything in January. I didn’t go out of the house for 10 days. Was five degrees, right? Yep. And then we see these pantries, all of them start to need more help, right here, right now,
Chris Dipnarine 19:37
greater these type of months, right? Because that’s what everybody told me, going into November, going into December. Man, everybody wants to give because that’s giving Tuesday, right, right? But everybody forgets about the rest of the year, yeah, and that’s the sad part
Nestor Aparicio 19:49
about it. So what are you doing at for my city rest of the year? Give me the whole thing. So
Chris Dipnarine 19:54
we rescue food 24/7, no matter what, we rescue food all year, year round, right? So our first phase. Really where we educate people, like we’re doing here on radio, about food waste and about donating instead of trashing, right? So we rescue food. I primarily focus on like the vendors, the big distributors, like the Amazons, the Walmart like their warehouse, right? The produce distributors, the Lancasters, the sudanos, directly from their warehouse and directly from your major farms. Then we divert that food to families that are facing hunger. So we have a pantry here in West Baltimore, where it’s an open market concept. Everything that we rescue is laid out on the table, and families can come in and pick up food resources Monday through Friday, from 10am to 6pm we are closed from one to two for lunch for these
Nestor Aparicio 20:38
folks, it almost serves as a market, right? Exactly. It’s shame free, yep, right? And then that’s such a big I’m from a proud Dundalk, you know? I mean, this community’s proud. No one wants to ask for any so, you know,
Chris Dipnarine 20:52
when I built for my city, I wanted to make sure that I had that empathetic mind in place, right? So when you come to our thing, it doesn’t look like a pantry. We’re not giving you a box. You’re walking up, and we give you a box you’re coming in, you’re shopping like you’re shopping in the market, and you have people there from the community, talking to you, helping you. We have on site youth mentoring. We have composting. On site, composting right out of facilities. So we develop technology that turns food waste into usable soil within 24 hours. We’re the only organization in Maryland running that technology. We’re the only organization in the United States with the largest indoor composter. I have a machine that turns up to 6000 pounds of food waste into usable soil in 24 hours. Nobody’s really talking about that. But we’re advancing composting technology in the United States right now beyond what everybody
Nestor Aparicio 21:40
Chris, give me your your north star on this to say, all right, it was seven years ago. You’re in Fort Lauderdale. You’re in the boating business, you’re making money, you’re living the life your kids are kids and like all that. And you see this homeless man get hit. You reached your rich buddies. Nobody wants to help, and you’re like, Okay, I mean, that’s long past racing the cars and kids and not Trinidad, so you’re in Fort Lauderdale. Give me that pathway to say what is for my city and where that what happened between homeless man in Fort Lauderdale and sustainability program in Southwest Baltimore. So I
Chris Dipnarine 22:17
moved here, I moved back here, and I started driving around, picking up food, right? So like my first client, client was Hilton Hotels, Hilton and Baltimore, I said, go there on evenings, pick up all their leftover foods, just give it out to homeless people, right? But then COVID hit, I did this from there to 20, like 2020, then when COVID hit, all the Hilton Hotels were shutting down, so that empty their kitchens, right? So everybody started reaching out to me and say, Hey, Chris, you know, I know the food bank is shut down all these Can you come pick it up? So I started picking up the food. And then distributors were calling me because they were getting my numbers through the grapevine, hey, blah, blah, blah. We ended up setting up a church parking lot st Gabriel church in Woodlawn, and add a refrigerator trailer there, and all these companies just dump food there at there. And we said we had about 460 community organizations used to come to that parking lot and just go back to their various communities and give our food. That’s when I realized, like
Nestor Aparicio 23:16
so the plague really did this. Yeah, this is COVID started. COVID started, put you in business to do what you’re doing. COVID
Chris Dipnarine 23:23
really expanded my program and showed, showed, actually showed me the light, also to how much food waste there is, but also allowed me to say, you know, what I see, the food waste. What else can I develop to really, you know, close the four for my city system and make, make it something that is not being done anywhere else. So again, you know, I had the mindset of, like, I want to invent, do, like, technology and stuff in this space, but when COVID hit, and then I and we really saw the magnitude of food waste in this country, it’s like, all right, you know what? Here’s a problem, here’s a solution. Let’s now expand my program to, like, all the different phases and start getting this thing going. Let’s talk
Nestor Aparicio 24:01
about nutrition a little bit, because I think that’s at the core of this. We talked about the Maryland Food Bank and canned goods, right? And how that goes. You decided like fresh food. And listen, I would say I’m a pretty healthy 56 year old guy. I’m into fruits and vegetables, into fresh foods, into hydrate, all of these things that make me not look 56 quite frankly, that I’ve had to learn a long life’s highway about food and what’s good for you and what’s good to just get the stickers that’ll get you through the day. But Snickers is not a that’s that’s not a way of life, right? So good food definitely. You know,
Chris Dipnarine 24:39
when people think about hunger, and they think about food insecure, like for me, right? I There’s food insecurity is hunger. Hunger is like you have zero food, right? And most families in Baltimore, I would say maybe 10% of them are really facing hunger, but the most of them are failing food food insecurity. Food insecurity really means lack of access to health. Healthy food, right? Food that would be good for your body. So when you look at most food banks, most food pantries, they give you the canned goods and all that kind of stuff. That’s a lot of processed food, that’s a lot of, you know, chemicals in those, in those canned goods and stuff. That’s why we have obesity problems. That’s why we have diabetes. Is we have these things 100% but when you drive the streets of Baltimore, even like here in Dundalk, right, when you drive the streets of these inner cities. What don’t you see? Don’t see produce stands. You don’t see, you know, everything
Nestor Aparicio 25:25
you see in an island, right? Everything that you try through an island, you don’t just stand. Everything’s fresh in an island, fresh
Chris Dipnarine 25:31
fruit and stuff. And this is what food insecurity is. And this is why we have huge obesity problems, why we have huge diabetic problem and health conditions within these communities. Is the lack of access to healthy food. And then some communities, they do have the access there, but then they’re completely priced out from it, right? So you can go and would you buy four cucumbers for $4 or would you buy four burgers for $4 you’re going to choose the four Big Macs right for the $4 so, and this is a problem, is when you look at these inner city communities, they’re really priced out of eating.
Nestor Aparicio 26:02
Well, there’s also an education part of knowing the value of a cucumber versus a cheeseburger. There you go. Everybody wants meat. Everybody wants cheese, everybody, you know, like all of this stuff, you know. And this is a big component. I live old and skinny on vegetables and rice, primarily a little bit of protein, and I pimp all of these places, and I put a lot of food out. But like, you know what I had for lunch? I had a salad and a little chicken sandwich, you know, like, because I want to be healthy, you can’t eat fried all the time or so. From your perspective, if I come over, it’s gonna look like a market of color. And I don’t mean black and white, you and me. I mean color of greens and yellows and reds and vegetables. By the way, the folks here have given me a gift. Thank you to Anne’s toy closet. I hope please don’t give me a gift. They give me food. That’s nice.
Chris Dipnarine 26:49
So, yeah, I mean, when, when you look at our spread, it’s like a, like a farmer’s market. You come in, there’s, you know, broccoli, there’s carrots, there’s different food resources that we rescue every day. Families can come once a day, but they can come five days a week if they want, and every day. I mean, we like, if you just came in, like, for instance, today we have about 141 hours worth of fresh produce out there that you’d leave with. So you know, and that’s the difference with with the for my city model, most other food banks are one day, right? You have one day a distribution at nine o’clock or whatever, a Thursday or Wednesday, you can go to it. We’re open every day. You know?
Nestor Aparicio 27:24
Why did this become sustainable in your place that moved from a parking lot and Woodlawn to your your will? So Avenue, correct? When we
Chris Dipnarine 27:31
started getting donations, people started a lot of my, a lot of my early years, I funded the program on my own. So I had to, you know, buy the trucks and buy everything on my own. I, still pay for a lot of stuff. I would say about 60% of my programming is funded by me. But now we’re starting to get donors. Now we’re starting to get some businesses that are backing us and supporting us. We’re starting to get grants and different things, and that’s what we’re trying to build by coming on shows like yours, trying to build our donor base, just like other organizations. So you’re
Nestor Aparicio 28:04
not like, you know, I say like listeners bringing some canned goods, which our friends did, to go. You’re, you’re a different, completely different kind of organization. Yeah,
Chris Dipnarine 28:13
we don’t take residential donations for the canned goods and stuff only because of our distribution model. You have a different ask, yeah, yeah. We rather if you want to come, you can come volunteer with us, or you donate, set up a recurring donation online on our platform for my city.us. Is our website. The number 4m, y, C, i, t, y.us, is our website. You can just donate online, but we rescue so much food in bulk, and we get it directly from the distributors. And because we’re giving these out to families. We try to follow, like, safe food handling guidelines and stuff. I’m not saying that. I don’t know where food from people’s homes have been, but you know, because of the volume of food we’re putting out, we want to make sure that we handle the food the right way. So the food goes from like, their refrigerator warehouse to our refrigerator house directly to our distribution table. Is
Nestor Aparicio 28:59
there any kind of food you can’t do and you’re in your program? No, because, again, a lot of food pantries are like, look, that’s spoilable. I can’t take milk and cheese and those kinds of things that becomes more difficult. Where are you to? Know, we bring
Chris Dipnarine 29:14
everything. We have refrigeration, we have freezer space, we as long as it’s not we don’t take expired food and we don’t give out expired food, you know, again, you know, I grew up food insecure, and I have a lot of pride in the service that my organization is giving. So I don’t, you know, my donors know that if you because we educate them on on inventory management and stuff. So we want them to donate. You could donate up to the day of expiration to us, and we’ll get it out to the communities. Although expiration dates on food really don’t mean anything. They’re subjective, but it’s the thought that you’re giving someone this food. I don’t want to give someone, oh, you know, just because you’re hungry Here, take this because the expiration date is bad. You know what? We need to put the pressure on the manufacturers and the distributors to handle the inventory. Tory, right? So that when we give, we’re giving, you know, from an empathetic mind mindset,
Nestor Aparicio 30:04
winter different than summer for you. Summer is
Chris Dipnarine 30:07
greater, so the need for summer is greater. And this is something people don’t factor in where that is. Remember, a lot of kids go to school in these inner cities, in these communities, and they get food when the summer is around, schools are closed, right? So the need is greater, because now all these kids are home, and that’s not the I got three kids, man, they eat like kids. My 12 year old eats the same as me. Now I’m like, holy crap, boy. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 30:33
that’s part of growing. You know, Kristen Bryan is here. He is with for my city, and that’s the number for my city. This is, um, it sounds like something to the international this is the thing on the satellite that’s kind of a cool name, but it doesn’t, you know, like, but it your city is Baltimore, period. But,
Chris Dipnarine 30:52
you know, the premise is, we can take this and put it in any other city and still gonna be for my city, right? Sure,
Nestor Aparicio 30:59
scalable model you know?
Chris Dipnarine 31:01
But, yeah, I mean, that’s the goal. Is really, for me, this started as a pet project. I still treat it as a pet project. The beauty about us is I don’t take a pay from this organization, and we don’t have a paid board. We don’t have a paid CEO. Just feed people. This program is run by kids from the community. So we have a YouTube mentoring program for kids aged 16 to 23 and I hire them, I pay them $15 an hour, and then they, they’re the ones running everything that you hear me say here, so
Nestor Aparicio 31:30
I want to meet these young people. Yeah, they’re the ones really doing this. They’re
Chris Dipnarine 31:34
the ones doing it. I mean,
Nestor Aparicio 31:39
for you to explain this to people as a business in the middle of the plague, when people have masks on, and saying, all right, makes me feel good. I got kind of a bunt. You had abundance in your life as you explain it, financially and health wise and other things, you come here and say, How do I take this thing from a parking lot to like? At what point did you realize you had not a business, you know, something that became a calling. It’s clearly a calling to you. I mean,
Chris Dipnarine 32:07
that’s right, definitely, man, you know before, like, you know, before COVID, I definitely had passion for what I was doing, because I was rescuing food. We were giving our toys for the kids every year. We were always doing some amazing stuff. But when COVID hit, and you really see how all our infrastructure could shut shut down. And then you see the struggle of families I am well, we got a federal government
Nestor Aparicio 32:27
trying to shut the federal government down this morning. Let’s start with that, right? We did
Chris Dipnarine 32:32
a distribution at the state fairgrounds, right? And people had to come with cars, right? Those are certain guidelines in Maryland right now, we filled the entire parking lot of the Maryland State Fairgrounds for that food distribution. You know, close to, I think, was 2000 cars cycled through that distribution that day, one of the largest food distributions here in the state of Maryland. And the crazy part is, we didn’t buy a pound of food for that distribution. Everything that we did, that did was rescued. We’ve rescued and distributed 260 million pounds of food?
Nestor Aparicio 33:01
Yeah, I love that word that you use, the Word Rescue,
Chris Dipnarine 33:04
rescue, rescue. Give everyone
Nestor Aparicio 33:07
in my audience an example of what that means. Give me a call that’s gonna come to you tomorrow. Somebody’s gonna say, I got 1000 pounds of celery or, yeah, like, literally, but how does that work? That’s
Chris Dipnarine 33:17
it, right there, right? So, like, I’ll get a call from, you know a distributor, let’s say imperfect foods. Hey, Chris, a truck just showed up with bananas. The temperature is often the bananas, or a couple cases look like there’s a couple of bad bananas, these distributors will refuse that load because of that before one or two cases look bad, they’re gonna say, we don’t want the load. So that trucker, now, that trucking company, or that they’re stuck with either throwing that away or doing something, I make banana bread out of that. So they call us and maybe like, yeah, you know, hey, look, we got tomatoes, or tomatoes are soft that, and then what they really were, so we got to refuse the truck. Sure divert it to me, or if you want to receive it, and then I’ll send my truck there to pick it up. But most of the time the distributor would just divert that load to us, you know, and you’re
Nestor Aparicio 34:02
right off 95 now, that’s exactly like, so any anybody from New Jersey to Florida driving, they want to give you something they can do
Chris Dipnarine 34:09
it right? Companies like Amazon. Like, like, for instance, people think Amazon. Amazon is, remember, Amazon’s just a facilitator of these things. People buy, get their product. They put it in Amazon so that you could buy. So, like, for instance, if you have a case of water and one of that that case is torn while it’s coming down the Amazon belt or something, Amazon’s not gonna retake that and send that to customer, because guess what, Mr. It
Nestor Aparicio 34:33
goes into the Island of Misfit Toys. Mr. Perfect is gonna say, Oh, you
Chris Dipnarine 34:37
cut mine open. I don’t want that return it. Okay, right? And all that goes into, like, this big bin of just miscellaneous stuff. And their donation person just kind of sorts, it puts it in boxes, and we pick up at Amazon every single week all these miscellaneous items. Glad the
Nestor Aparicio 34:52
Bezos is doing something now, you know, I mean, Amazon gets a bad rap sometimes, right? I mean, hey, that down here, trade point Atlantic. I’m like. This
Chris Dipnarine 35:00
is like, biggest down here, biggest facilities right here, office fast, absolutely.
Nestor Aparicio 35:03
I mean, it’s really nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you. This is fun. We should do this more often for my city. Is the name of what we do here. Chris dipne Ryan. I’m gonna have other guests here. I have a camp opportunity coming a little later on. We were talking about Anne’s toys, toy closet in Essex at St Lutheran, St John’s Lutheran Church. I’m running out of words. Must be in Dundalk, where it cost us. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery at the magic eight ball. Tickets were given away. Haven’t given you one there? That’s your number seven double, oh seven. Lucky double, oh seven there. Also, we’re gonna be tomorrow, on Tuesday, we’re gonna be back downtown at falees, at the Inner Harbor, at Lexington market. We’re going to be at Cocos on Wednesday, Thursday. We’re going to be over at State Fair over in your side of town, State Fair over Catonsville. And then we’re going to be up at Cooper’s north on Friday, telling cancer stories, food stories, church stories, love stories, people stories, community stories. That’s kind of what this couple Super Bowls all about we are collecting canned goods for the Maryland food bank. He doesn’t take can goods, but I got some canned goods here. Come on out all week long. We’re making sure these are winding up in pantries like, like the Catonsville Community Assistance Program that I’m gonna be talking to a Carolyn Kirby about over in state fair on Thursday. Alright, so for our folks here, if they’re not bringing you canned goods, and they’re not bringing you dented bananas. Give them an action item. And also a, I would say, and I haven’t been there, I kind of want to see your place and kind of see it in action, or go online and see
Chris Dipnarine 36:33
Instagram, we post the videos every single day of, like, the food processes. Like, I have a live feed camera that we kind of show, you know, when what’s on the table, like I’ll put you know, tables are stocked, and people can kind of gloom down there. We’re launching our for my city app, hopefully by the end of this month, and when you download our for my city app, you’ll see everything that’s on the table for that day. So our visitors, we have 11,000 families signed up to our program that come to our facility. We see about 300 families daily walk through our pan. That’s 2000
Nestor Aparicio 37:04
a week. That’s 8000 a month. I’m going math here. I’m doing the real math that stacks up, yeah, that’s, do you ever get silly, dangerously low? That? Yeah, yeah. I mean that the second 100 family that comes in on a Friday you run low. We always
Chris Dipnarine 37:20
have something for the families. We never get where we’re out of everything, but you
Nestor Aparicio 37:25
don’t want to be stocked in the ceiling either, because it is fresh
Chris Dipnarine 37:27
food Exactly. So we always have to move. But that’s why we’re rescuing every day. So we rescue every day, but we don’t get to the point where we’re out of food. We’re always gonna have something on our tables for the families. We give out socks, we give up clothes, we give up toys every year. I do, like, this past year, we did 35,000 toys for the kids in the community. That’s a toys we do, book bags, brand new, book bags and school supplies. Every September, for the for the toys, we really give back. Because, like I said, Every donation you’re not paying to, like, fat executive salaries, so all that money goes right back in the programs that we’re doing for our community. That’s what I love about the for my city, all our payroll is for the youth mentees. That’s the kids in the community, right?
Nestor Aparicio 38:08
Are you in the city or the county? So we’re in the city, right on the city. We’re close to this county
Chris Dipnarine 38:12
right, just there by city, Agnes hospital. We’re just under DeSoto Park. Well, that’s
Nestor Aparicio 38:16
why I knew right, where the right, where the you know, right by 95 All right, for my city, please go out. Check it out. Check out all the stuff we’re doing out at Baltimore positive this week, I’m gonna be getting all this out. And in addition, there’s this little football game this week. Joe Flacco has been on this week, Mike Nolan, a whole bunch of Hall of Fame voters talking about Marshall young and Terrell Suggs and Steve. You’re an American football guy yet? Or what? Yeah,
Chris Dipnarine 38:39
listen, Flacco supports us. Flacco did a couple of fundraisers for us. Really, yeah, Joe Joe’s the best guy. Jersey, Joe Joe’s awesome
Nestor Aparicio 38:47
man. Joe. Joe did like 40 minutes with me this week, and visited, stop by and
Chris Dipnarine 38:52
Yeah, he did a Top, Top Golf fundraiser for us. A flower has done Top Golf. Justin Tucker’s done a Top Golf. Ray Rice has done work for us, so we’ve had a call and
Nestor Aparicio 39:04
referee, I’ll play any golf not with this back. Chris Did the Ryan. You can find him at for my city. You can also find him like I did out on LinkedIn as well. My thanks to you, man. I mean, I
Chris Dipnarine 39:14
said the Instagram has all our fun videos and stuff. You see our kids. Mostly, most important
Nestor Aparicio 39:20
thing? We’re talking food. I’m not hungry right now. I’m a cautious I can get anything I want to eat here, but if I come over to your house for a Trinidad Tobago feast celebration, you know, what would that look is there like a national celebration? Is there a national dish? Is there something that you specialize in, that you make that that I would say that’s good. So,
Chris Dipnarine 39:43
I mean, we listen, it’s time and day, right? So we turn that there’s so much food, man, we make like, I mean, there’s roti, there’s the curry chicken, you know, stew chicken, there’s the rice dish. We call Palau sassy rice. And spice is what Carolyn hears. Crab, you know. So we do a callaloo, you know? Oh,
Nestor Aparicio 40:03
that’s what I’m talking about. People strip you over there some Aki and salt fish for me, exactly.
Chris Dipnarine 40:07
You do a nice callaloo, and you put the crab in there, you know, the nice blue crab and stuff in there. Man,
Nestor Aparicio 40:14
she says, callaloo. It’s really just spinach, spinach, but it’s better than it is, because it’s callous he
Chris Dipnarine 40:21
makes on callaloo and a nice macaroni pie. Man, that’s, again, it’s all kind of different dishes, spoken like
Nestor Aparicio 40:27
an island. Man, here. Chris Tipton, Ryan, on my first time and absolute pleasure. Thanks for coming on. Man, appreciate it making a way over here. We’re done, dog, we’re at Costas in. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. You have the mirror, the magic eight ball scratches. They’re gonna give me the monopoly tickets, and I’m like, I just like scratching the eight ball makes me feel good. Make sure download the app with Maryland. Maryland lotteries will MB, lottery.com Also our friends at wise markets, we call these wise conversations. I learned stuff. That’s why they’re wise conversations. Cup of Super Bowl out on the road all week long. Make sure you come and find us. And also, Luke is monitoring all things Justin Tucker, as well as Orioles and ravens offseason, and there’s a football game on Sunday. I’m Nestor back for more from Costas. It’s a cup of Super Bowl and learning stuff and hanging out with cool people. Stay with us. You.
