Blue Island brewery hosts charity ‘bash’
Cabbage-based home run derby helps provide food for agencies serving veterans
Evolving from an after-party of the South Side Irish Parade several years ago, Blue Island Beer Company’s annual Cabbage Bash — a home run derby with cabbage projectiles — offered a chance last week to vent some aggression for a cause.
Even the refuse was put to good use.
“It’s $5 for a head of cabbage,” said owner Alan Cromwell. “And you hit it until it’s gone.”
Pre-pandemic, the event raised funds for area schools; it now supports Farm2Veteran, a recently incorporated charity based at Fulcrum Farm in Will County. This year’s bash drew about 50 participants, raising $1,000 for the group.
“We donate exclusively to charities that house veterans,” said Farm2Veteran founder and CEO Kevin Van Eekeren, of Manhattan. “It is crazy to me that veterans give up so much — time, body parts, mental health — in service to this country, and we give them nothing when they get back.”
Van Eekeren determined his farm would help fill that void.
In 2021 he donated 13,000 meals to veterans; by 2022 the group dispersed 58,506 meals and is opening a Texas division. Van Eekeren self-funded the charity at the outset, he says, taking no donations in 2021 to show potential supporters what could be accomplished.
The message worked, and “in 2022 we raised about $10,000,” he said.
The Texas division started as an amalgam of charitable venture and for-profit company, with plans to eventually adopt the model he’s established here. Doing so allows Van Eekeren to pursue his two passions simultaneously — sustainable farming and support for unhoused veterans.
“It never made sense to me why I could take a donor’s money and spend $10 on a dozen eggs when I can provide a better-quality product myself, for less money,” he said. “As far as we know, we are helping feed every charity housing veterans in the Chicagoland area.”
Farm2Veteran supports St. Leo Residence, operated by Catholic Charities; Veterans New Beginnings, run by New Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church; and VOA-Illinois’ Hope Manor developments, which house more than 200 veterans and their families in Joliet and Chicago.
“They bring over 65 dozen eggs every Friday to our veterans,” said Bridget Hickey, a vice president at VOA-Illinois, adding they often deliver the food to the veterans individually.
“They get nice fresh eggs, and it’s a great way to check in on them as well.”
Hickey says Farm2Veteran supplies more than eggs, twice a year donating frozen pork. Both the pork and eggs are also used in cooking classes at Hope Manor, where residents learn healthy cooking techniques.
“They purchased freezers for us so we are able to get that out to our residents year-round,” Hickey said. “They even let us pick what parts we want. All three of our properties are currently stocked with pork from them.”
Support for Farm2Veteran comes directly from events such as last week’s Cabbage Smash at Blue Island Beer Company, but also indirectly from the brewery.
“We rely upon regenerative farming practices,” Van Eekeren said, explaining that a byproduct of fermentation is niacin, a necessary vitamin for his animals.
Cromwell donates Blue Island’s spent mash from the brewing process to the animals on Fulcrum Farm.
“Our livestock get vitamins for free, and nothing from Alan’s brewing process ends up in a landfill,” said Cromwell, who added that the giving isn’t confined solely to his beer company.
“County Faire (grocery store) in Beverly donates the cabbage for the Home Run Derby,” he said. The cabbage remnants are fed to the farm’s livestock.
Worthiness of the cause aside, Cromwell says the current derby still holds the same appeal as the very first after-hours event.
“My favorite part of the whole thing?” he said. “Watching the faces of people in the crowd as cabbages explode.”