The Holiday Food Drive to fill the shelves at the Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry begins Friday.
It is the 17th year for the food drive, which starts Nov. 1 and runs through the day before Thanksgiving, which this year is Nov. 27, and is designed to help stock the pantry with food needed throughout the year. Katie Arko, pantry executive director, said that need continues to grow.
On a recent September Monday – one of the three days a week the pantry distributes food – the pantry set a record by serving 408 families. They then broke that record the next Monday, serving 428 families.
“Getting 400 families in and out of here in four hours is a challenge,” Arko said. “The fact we can give the people what they want helps. But our goal is to have no one go hungry.”
The pantry serves more than 1,300 families in a given week, and Arko said they expect that number to grow during the holidays.
The food drive is operating as it has for years, through three grocery stores: Prisco’s Family Market, 1108 Prairie St., Aurora; Cermak Fresh Market, 1250 N. Lake St., Aurora; and La Chiquita, 1525 Douglas Road, Montgomery.
Depending on how each store does it, people can buy packaged bags of groceries of $5, $10, $15 and $20 as they go through the checkout line during normal shopping.
They also can buy a $20 virtual bag online, a feature added two years ago that officials said worked well.
The pantry also takes monetary donations. The money is used to purchase food from the Geneva-based Northern Illinois Food Bank, and every $1 donated actually purchases $8 of food.
Both the virtual bags and the monetary donations can be done at the Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry website, https://www.aurorafoodpantry.org/.
Monetary donations are also still taken the old-fashioned way, with checks mailed to the pantry at 1110 Jericho Road, Aurora, IL, 60506. Checks should be made out to Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry.
The food drive also depends on volunteers who help in a number of ways, including passing out flyers promoting the drive at the participating grocery stores. Past experience shows that sales of the bags go up when volunteers are at the stores passing out the flyers.
Ways to volunteer are also at the pantry’s website. Individuals and families often volunteer, but so do many businesses, churches, Scouting and student groups and other organizations.
A current list of groups who have already volunteered to pass out flyers includes Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois; Health Care Services Corporation; Paychex, Inc.; Waubonsee Community College; Aurora University; St. Mark’s Lutheran Church; Blessed Sacrament Church; Macedonia Temple of God; various Girl Scout troops; and Mooney & Thomas, PC.
Blue Cross Blue Shield and the athletic teams from Aurora University also volunteer many hours helping at the pantry itself, sorting and stocking food.
Officials are trying to add a new wrinkle to the ways to donate – the ability to round up a purchase at one of the grocery stores, or at participating businesses.
This year, it will be done as a pilot at AC’s Pub, 2124 W. Galena Blvd., and Aurora Tap House, 134 W. Downer Place.
Some organizations also conduct their own food drives during the Holiday Food Drive, and donate the items collected to the pantry.
Sponsors of the Aurora Holiday Food Drive are Dolan and Murphy, Inc. real estate; Konen Insurance; Gerald Subaru of North Aurora; AuraLight Dispensary; Douglas Carpet One; Aurora Bank & Trust; Bob’s Discount Furniture; Oak St. Health; AC’s Pub; Ald. Patty Smith, 8th Ward; The Beacon-News; Aurora Fastprint; Cermak Fresh Market; La Chiquita; and 95.9 The River.
slord@tribpub.com
