Deborah Rudel, CEO of Fox Valley United Way, describes 2024 as “quite a year.”
She’s mostly referring to the nonprofit’s current Holiday Assistance Drive, which has been “better than last year” as more sponsors returned after a significant drop-off that likely can be blamed on the economy.
This year, the holiday project served 199 families that involved 508 local children. But that number could have been higher, Rudel told me, had there been even more sponsors.
The need is great, as it turns out, and getting more critical. Which will always weigh heavily on folks working the front lines of nonprofits dedicated to the community’s poor, including those tasked with filling the most basic of human needs.
Food pantries continue to see a steady rise in numbers, particularly around this time of year when families are trying to save money for gifts or other holiday expenses. At Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry, for example, the statistics swelled in the last six months — from 1,200-1,300 families served weekly to an average of 1,500, noted Executive Director Katie Arko. And when you break that number down to individuals – figuring four in a household – “It is kind of mind-blowing,” she admitted.
“Where is the ceiling? Where do we hit the place where we are maxed out? We are not there yet, but with the numbers we see, it can be troubling,” Arko said.
What Annette Johnson sees as the new executive director of the Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry in Aurora can even be heartbreaking.
I ran into Johnson, longtime president of School District 131’s Board of Education, on Sunday at East Aurora’s annual Las Posadas festival, a popular tradition that drew thousands to the Tomcat’s field house.
Surrounded by all that food and fun, Johnson became teary as she talked about what she’s witnessed in her short time leading the pantry.
“I thought I’d seen poverty,” in her role with the district, she said, “but it is nothing like” what she’s been exposed to working alongside the pantry’s volunteers.
“My eyes have been opened,” Johnson admitted, citing as one example a mother who arrived on one of those cold December days, coatless herself and cradling an infant wrapped in a thin blanket.
The silver lining in all of this, however, is “a community that recognizes and steps up to care for our neighbors in need … not something many other communities in the state can say.”
That’s not my quote: It comes from Joe Jackson, executive director of Hesed House in Aurora, who tells me the generosity of people in this area will allow him to rest a little easier this year as we head into winter.
That’s because the city is funding a warming center with volunteers from Wesley United Methodist Church staffing it. And he’s thrilled with the recent opening of Hesed House’s expansion shelter that will increase the number of warm beds from 145 before the pandemic to 280.
Jackson also points to many other groups going above and beyond to help the poor: Like the Association for Individual Development, with its Street Outreach Program; ECHO Development Center; Wayside Cross Ministries; the Aurora Police Department; Aurora Public Library; the Kane County Health Department and the county’s pre-arrest diversion program.
Also included in this nice list, of course, are local food pantries, big and small, as well as the community fridges that add another layer of help to those struggling to put groceries on the table.
No doubt there are resources left out of this column. Even as I was writing it, Kane County sent an update on its Toys for Tots drive that, as part of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve’s national program, collected 21,000 toys last year, and was so successful this year each child will receive two gifts rather than one. Those donations, the article also pointed out, included several hundred bicycles provided by WAV, LLC of Aurora, which is committed to increasing the number of bikes each year.
Still, in spite of so much in place, experts insist we need to dig deeper.
“While all these programs put our community in a better spot than others, at the same time, to truly solve the problem, we need to address the housing crisis,” said Jackson. “The city and so many others are taking steps toward addressing it but the solution takes time and comes with complicated and expensive requirements.”
Katie Arko agrees. “Rent,” she told me, “is a big one.”
When Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry social workers meet one-on-one with those using the pantry, “the thing we are hearing is the shortage of housing, especially affordable housing,” she said. “There’s not enough available and it’s putting a tremendous strain on people.”
There is, however, a silver lining in all of this, and it comes in the form of a generous community.
That includes the many sponsors who make toy drives and stocked food shelves and warm beds possible. It includes hundreds of volunteers who, as Arko pointed out, “dedicate a large chunk of their lives” so things will be a little easier for their neighbors who are struggling.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she insisted. “I can’t imagine a world trying to operate on just our staff alone. It would be physically impossible to do.”
Likewise, United Way’s Rudel was delighted with the “plentiful” number of volunteers who turned out to collect and distribute holiday gifts, including Mayor Richard Irvin and the city of Aurora staff.
Still, even as Rudel recounted to me the blessings of this 2024 holiday gift drive, the numbers keep climbing.
Two more families – which include six children – who recently were displaced are now living at Hesed House and in need of gifts under the tree, especially clothing.
“Can you imagine moving into a shelter a week before Christmas?,” she asked.
No, I can’t. But Rudel has volunteers standing by and ready to shop. All she needs are a few generous folks calling the United Way office at 630-896-4636.
And knowing this community as I do, there’s a good chance she will get them.
dcrosby@tribpub.com
