What to know about the local food pantry
In 2020, I finally started doing what was a bucket list item for me — volunteering at a food pantry. I was trying to find a way to volunteer where I could be behind the scenes and still help.
The food pantry has definitely fit that bill, and I have also learned a lot in the process. As holiday food donations ramp up, here are a few things you may not know about the local food pantry — and need to — based on my experiences.
No one wants your expired lima beans, especially if they asked for treats and snacks for kids.
The week we went through the Hunger Action Month donations at the suburban Chicago food pantry where I volunteer, I was pretty surprised, both at how people seemed to define “snacks and treats for children” (the requested items) and just how many people gave expired food.
The volunteers spent valuable hours carefully checking each label, and tossing everything that was expired. What was left? Very, very few snacks and treats for kids, mostly the weird crap people bought and never ate. This helps no one, and it is the reason many agencies just request cash donations instead of food.
You can’t put a price on dignity.
We take countless things for granted when we can pay our bills. In 2020, many friends and neighbors of mine were unemployed, and I put out frequent offers to get them a load of food and bring it to them. But for most people, the gulf between filing for unemployment and going to a food pantry (or accepting food from one) is as big as the Grand Canyon.
It shouldn’t be like this. If you need food but are embarrassed about it, don’t be. Food pantries are here to serve you, and they want to serve you. Generally all you have to do is tell the volunteers your address. We also serve people who are unhoused.
Not sure where to go? Go to solvehungertoday.org, and click on the “Get Groceries” tab at the top of the page. You can find
food pantries and sign up for SNAP (food stamps), among other things. If you don’t have access to a computer, you can call 630-443-6910. You can also find links to volunteer or donate on the website and through the phone number.
And if you need more than food, you should ask the volunteers, who will likely be able to point you in the right direction. We often have limited quantities of dog food and baby items at my food pantry.
Many food pantries are contactless because of the pandemic, and one instruction ours gives is for clients to clear their trunks so we can efficiently serve them. Trouble is, some people live in their cars. Some people’s cars are their offices. Treating people with dignity is paramount in a situation like this, and we are always striving to find ways to do that.
If anyone out there is “scamming,” a frequent question I’m asked, they are participating in the dumbest scam imaginable — lining up for hours to collect a random load of food they have no agency in choosing, due to the volume of families served.
The food distributed is healthy, but it can be random.
The best weeks are when we have the following items: plentiful produce, bread, milk, eggs, butter, and some meat. We often do. Sometimes I imagine the healthy meals people can put together with items we’re giving out; sometimes I realize it’s going to be pretty hard to figure out how to use 26 plums in one week.
The director of the food pantry puts together donations often from a variety of sources: free government distribution, local grocery store donations, or loads ordered from companies like Amazon. It is a game of Tetris on a very large scale, and when the pieces fit, it’s a great feeling.
This is going to be a long winter for a lot of people.
In the summer, in those glorious few weeks when we thought things were going to be OK, our numbers plummeted to around 140 families served per week. We are back to turning people away because we have run out of food after serving more than 250 families.
What I’ve learned:
When I give to a food drive now, I go straight to the cereal, cookie and snack aisles. I always tried to include name-brand items, but now I focus entirely on goodies that children will enjoy. And if there are no kids in the house, there’s a kid in all of us, and many of us like name brand Oreos.
Wendy Fox Weber is the entertainment editor for the suburban Chicago newspapers of Tribune Publishing. On Giving Tuesday, Nov. 30, consider giving to St. John Food Pantry at stjohnfood.org.