The DJ Takeover sponsored by Level Up is a program for listeners to discover their favorite artist's favorite artists, working to foster connection to the music and makers inside and outside our city. For the entire hour, we go down the rabbit hole of stories from their past, experiences of the present and goals for the future.
In 2021, after working at a Boys and Girls Club, Gianni Vaccaro realized many kids don’t eat at home. Soon after this realization, she and Bike Benefits owner Ian Klepetar did what most people would do in this situation: They went Dumpster diving at Sendik’s.
Finding a bountiful supply of perfectly good food, Vaccaro started asking grocery stores for the food they planned to throw out. Receiving only rejections, she decided to do some digging — this time, outside of the Dumpster.
What she found was the Bill Emerson Act, also known as the Good Samaritan law, which allows anyone to give food away for free, protecting them from liabilities. This inspired Vaccaro to formalize her own nonprofit, Sauce Milwaukee, through which she takes these food donations and cooks hot, homemade (literally from her own home), plant-based meals, then delivers them to areas of nutrition scarcity.
What makes Sauce especially unique is that Vaccaro makes these year-round deliveries on her bike — an approach that makes her more, well, approachable.
“When you put a physical wall [like a car] between you and someone else, there’s a barrier between you,” she explained, adding that bicycle delivery transmits a different message: “I’m comfortable. We’re all comfortable. Here we are. Have a snack.”
Regardless of the wheels that get them there, Sauce eliminates the transportation barrier that often prohibits individuals from reaching food resources. Fittingly for this DJ Takeover, Vaccaro’s playlist was full of songs she listens to while in the saddle on her delivery routes.
Those paths are determined by areas of need. She explained that there are roughly 182 neighborhoods in Milwaukee, 80 of which meet the criteria for areas of nutrition scarcity, often referred to as food deserts. Vaccaro clarified that it's more than not having a grocery store within a mile of you; some of these neighborhoods don’t even have a corner store. Almost 50 of them are on the North Side alone.
After years of getting to know different neighborhoods, Vaccaro now rotates dropoffs among areas with the most need. It’s a map that has become clearer over time, but I wanted to understand Sauce’s impact even better for this particular DJ Takeover. So we invited Radaya Ellis, a recipient of those meals and a brand creator in Milwaukee, to join us in the studio.
Ellis started the brand 4waukee as a way to remind people not just of the area code connected to the city, but the message it carries.
“There is active, ongoing detrimental segregation and racism,” she began. “And one way in which you see that is by way of the area code. So 608 and the 262 were all quite literally deliberate ways in which people could separate themselves from Milwaukee and still utilize the resources and do all the cool stuff in Milwaukee. 4waukee is just to highlight that all of the cool stuff that we know about Milwaukee actually comes from the residents of Milwaukee.”
One of the ways Ellis lives her mission is by highlighting big events that aren’t often spotlighted. 4waukee promotes all things through the lens of: What does it mean to feel safe in Milwaukee as an adult? As Ellis explained, “safeness comes in where somebody can actually play.”
Sauce has helped 4waukee promote safety within play by catering many of their events over the past two years. However, Ellis first received the nonprofit’s food services herself.
“I had come across a time where I was in between jobs, and … how much I eat and what I was eating, I couldn't afford it,” she recalled. “So Gianni came through and pretty much provided me with all of the foods I already eat. … It wasn't a trade-off. It was just like a shift as to where I get my food.”
Vaccaro created Sauce as a resource for folks from any background; she believes an individual shouldn’t need to be “on the brink of starvation” to receive free food and tries to eliminate the shame she often encounters from people who find themselves in a situation of need.
What do Vaccaro and Ellis hope for the future of our city? “ That Sauce Milwaukee doesn’t have to exist, that everybody has enough to eat,” Vaccaro noted, “My other hope is that everybody gets all together — and that takes a lot of work from certain people and certain sides and everything — and some real sincere looking at ourselves, which I hope we're able to do.”
As for Ellis? “ My hope for Milwaukee is to recognize and have the State of Wisconsin not hate on the biggest city in the state. The second thing for Milwaukee is to be recognized as a cultural hub for both the city and the state.”
Sauce will continue their mission and give everyone a chance to show their support at a couple events coming up. They’ll be at Heal the Hood on May 30 serving free fruits to attendees, and the big one is June 28, when Sauce will host its sixth annual block party in partnership with Victory Garden Initiative.
Hosted by VGI at 249 E. Concordia Ave., the event from noon to 5 p.m. will have free food, free bicycles and bike repair, free haircuts, free diapers, free groceries, dance performances, music, free facepainting and tons of other free resources.
DJ Takeover: Sauce MKE playlist
- Nappy Roots, “Good Day”
- Erykah Badu, “I’ll Call You Back”
- Koffee, “Toast”
- Garren Sean, “There She Go”
- Slick Rick, “Street Talkin (ft. Outkast)”
- A Tribe Called Quest , “Can I Kick It?”
- Nas, “If I Ruled The World”
- Souls of Mischief, “93 Til Infinity”
- ROA, “Do You Love Me Still”
