Chicago Tribune (CT) - SUNDAY, December 11, 1994 Edition: CHICAGOLAND FINAL Section: TEMPO Page: 3 Word Count: 720
Barbara Mahany, Tribune Staff Writer.

There it is, tucked along North Sheridan Road, where the street takes an elbow turn and confuses every cab driver in the city with the street directionals telling you you're at the corner of Sheridan and Sheridan.

Braced by a corner saloon on one side and a no-name coin laundry on the other, the storefront at 3902 can't help but grab you, what with all the action in the window. There's the mannequin, wearing crinolines and a "Kitchen Witch" apron, doing a two-step amid a pile of groceries, backed by a chorus line of oversize red cut-out hearts.Under construction is the fully-automated Ferris wheel that will spin ceaselessly in the window, each cab of the carnival ride to be filled with, oh, a can of Hormel chili, a loaf of Pepperidge Farm oatmeal bread or perhaps a tube of Crest.

No, this is not some mini-mart for the fairground set into which you've wandered. This is Open Hand GroceryLand, the first of three proposed sites in the city where people with AIDS or diagnosed as HIV-positive can come weekly to pick up a load of free groceries.

It's a new project of Open Hand Chicago, the not-for-profit program that six years ago started out delivering nightly meals to 35 patients with AIDS and now cooks up 1,000 hot meals and bag lunches each afternoon, delivering them to patients' doorsteps in time for dinner.

The whole idea here is to break the mold of the dreary, dismal world of waiting rooms to which people with AIDS or HIV are so often sentenced. Once past the front window, there's a cozy little storefront that looks like a Crayola box gone berserk. One wall is school-bus yellow, another periwinkle blue and still another celery green. Countertops are bubblegum pink.

The whimsy doesn't stop there. Stuffed mounted fish, leftover from the last tenant, the 46th Ward Republican headquarters, have been doused in rainbow fluorescents. One stuffed trout lunches on Chicken of the Sea tuna, the tin can stuffed in its mouth.

There's a sitting area with hand-me-down couches, tables and lamps, even high-tech track lighting overhead, "to make sure the clients can really read the grocery lists when they come in," says Lori Cannon, GroceryLand's manager who is part mother hen, part lounge hostess to the clients who stroll in for groceries. One minute she's making sure they remembered their gloves, the next she's cracking jokes, working the room like a Borscht Belt comedian, heavy on warmth and making them feel at home.

"This whole project is a testament to the generosity of spirit and dedication of vision of our Open Hand volunteers," says Cannon, who opened GroceryLand the week of Thanksgiving, after less than a year of planning and production.

"We certainly had an idea for the place, but the volunteers created it. That includes drywalling, electrical wiring, dazzling painting, state-of-the-art security and the initial blueprints.

"The feeling of the entire crew is that our clients spend so much time at public aid offices, doctors' offices and hospital rooms that we wanted this grocery center to just exude cheer and warmth and good feelings about food and meals and good cooking." Cannon leans on the bubble gum pink countertop, and surveys the scene. "I think we've done that."

The idea here is simple: Each week an ever-growing client list will wander in at appointed times, fill out a grocery list of brand-name foodstuffs and fresh, top-quality produce-items not easy to get when you're dependent on public aid or the food-pantry circuit. Then a volunteer behind the counter will grab a cart and roam the well-stocked aisles.

In 15 minutes, tops, the client will walk out with a week's worth of ingredients for good home-cooking and, say Cannon and several clients, the dignity of knowing that, at least in this little way, they can take care of themselves.

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Call 312-244-0088 for more information about Open Hand GroceryLand.

CAPTION: PHOTO: Lori Cannon, manager of Open Hand GroceryLand, brings groceries ordered no more than 15 minutes earlier to Sterling Davenport. The grocery is the first of three proposed facilities in the city. Tribune photo by Milbert Orlando Brown.

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