People who drive through Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry’s distributions in Aurora typically get four bags of food, Executive Director Annette Johnson says – a bag of bread, a bag of produce, a bag of dairy and a bag of canned goods.
Those four bags are supplemental, pantry Operations Manager Dean Seppelfrick said.
“We are not an end-all,” Seppelfrick said. “We cannot feed your family for a week with what we give you.”
But, during its drive-thru distribution on March 12, the pantry ran out of produce halfway through, Johnson said. About 120 families didn’t get any at all, she estimated.
Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry is among the local groups impacted by recent confusion over a pandemic-era United States Department of Agriculture grant that provides reimbursements to feeding programs, food banks and organizations serving underserved communities, according to the USDA’s website.
The grant – the Local Food Purchase Assistance, or LFPA, program – allowed DeKalb nonprofit organization Rooted for Good (formerly called DeKalb County Community Gardens) to purchase from local farmers and distribute the food to community members, including to the Marie Wilkinson and Aurora Area Interfaith food pantries in Aurora, said Rooted for Good’s Executive Director Heather Edwards.
Now, the grant’s future is uncertain.
Illinois began operating the Local Food Purchase Assistance program in October 2022, calling it the Illinois Equitable Access Towards Sustainable Systems, or IL-EATS, program. The state committed to sourcing all of the products from socially disadvantaged farmers and producers.
In terms of how the funding is handed down, the Illinois Department of Agriculture receives the money from USDA, and then transfers it to the Illinois Department of Human Services which pays the local agencies, a spokesperson from IDHS explained. These local agencies have already paid the farmers they purchase from, and are refunded by IDHS.
Rooted for Good applied for the grant in the fall of 2023, Edwards said, and they were first awarded the grant money to purchase food from local farmers in March 2024. The nonprofit runs its own food pantry and gardens, and occasionally gave surplus food to other local pantries, but not with regularity until the Local Food Purchase Assistance grant. The reimbursements from the federal government allowed them to buy fresh produce from nearby farmers and distribute it for free to the community, including to other area food pantries.
On Jan. 17, Gov. JB Pritzker announced that the state would be using $14.7 million in federal grant funding to continue the Local Food Purchase Assistance program past June 30, 2025, when it was set to end.
Then the U.S. Agriculture Department cut the program.
Edwards informed the food pantries via email on Feb. 28 that they would no longer be giving produce to them as of March 1, because they didn’t know whether they would get reimbursed by the federal government for the produce purchases past February.
On March 4, the Illinois Department of Agriculture said that it would stop operating the Local Food Purchase Assistance program in Illinois because the federal government had cut funding for the program.
In another email from Edwards on March 5, Rooted for Good said it would pay the local farmers it bought products from for February, but were unsure whether they’d get reimbursed from the state.
Illinois Department of Human Services, which receives funding from the Illinois Department of Agriculture and administers the reimbursements to organizations like Rooted for Good, said it has received “multiple contradictory guidance and information from the USDA, which has been incredibly difficult to navigate” in the past weeks.
On March 7, the llinois Department of Agriculture was told the rest of the fund balances from the program – which was set to go until June 2025 – could be spent, an Illinois Department of Human Services spokesperson said on March 18, meaning the Local Food Purchase Assistance program is set to continue in Illinois through June.
“This was a complete reversal from prior communications from USDA, which indicated that they would not reimburse any costs incurred after Jan. 19, 2025,” a spokesperson from Illinois Department of Human Services said on March 18.
Illinois Department of Human Services said it has communicated with the local agencies it provides reimbursements to that it would be refunded for expenses incurred in January and February. Rooted for Good said it has a meeting set for Friday with IDHS to update them on the status of their reimbursements. Edwards has said previously they would resume their partnership with the local food pantries should funding be reinstated.
Also included in this series of funding pauses and reinstatements was another USDA grant – called the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement program, or LFS – that gives funding to states to assist with purchasing local food to distribute at schools and child care institutions, according to the USDA website.
The Illinois State Board of Education had signed an agreement in January to continue the LFS program, but now it will lose that funding after Jan. 31, 2026, according to a statement from the state board on March 12.
The USDA said the two programs were vestiges of pandemic-era initiatives, and will be cut after this year’s funding expires in June.
“As pandemic-era programs, LFPA and LFS will now be sunsetted at the end of the performance period, marking a return to long-term, fiscally responsible initiatives,” a USDA spokesperson said in a statement to The Beacon-News. “This isn’t an abrupt shift — on March 7, USDA released over half a billion in previously obligated funds for LFPA and LFS to fulfill existing commitments and support ongoing local food purchases.”
“The COVID era is over — USDA’s approach to nutrition programs will reflect that reality moving forward,” the USDA statement on Wednesday said.
Now, Rooted for Good will continue its own operations, but – for the time being, at least – they won’t be able to buy enough produce to give out to other organizations, Edwards said.
Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry operates two locations, one on Aurora’s East Side and another on the city’s West Side. It also gives out food weekly at East Aurora High School. The pantry got weekly donations from Rooted for Good until mid-February, Johnson said.
Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry, on the West Side, last picked up produce from Rooted for Good on Feb. 19. The pantry has one pallet of dairy products left from the nonprofit, according to the pantry’s Program Director Eddie Galven, and as of now aren’t expecting any more.
Both Aurora food pantries have other sources of produce, such as paying for products from food banks, taking individual donations, doing “food rescue” or “food recovery” – in which the pantries send out trucks to grocery stores to take food the stores no longer want – and bringing in produce from their local gardens. But both organizations said Rooted for Good provided a degree of dependability – and higher-quality items.
“The cost of fresh produce, the cost of dairy – including eggs, of course – and meat are, in a food pantry and for our own homes, are the high-end ticket items,” Aurora Interfaith’s Executive Director Katie Arko said on Wednesday. “The produce in particular, the shelf life is very short.”
The food pantry received about six to eight pallets of produce, dairy and meat monthly from Rooted for Good, Galven said, which comes out to between 5,000 and 7,000 pounds. Arko estimates the food pantry provides food to about 1,500 families each week.
Without the produce funded by the USDA grant, the pantry is more reliant on getting these perishable products from grocery stores. A lot of those products are close to their expiration date, however, so the turnaround time to get them to individuals is quicker, Arko said.
Relying more heavily on produce from grocery stores is also more labor-intensive, Galven said, because all produce they get from food rescue has to be checked that it is not past its expiration date. The Rooted for Good food, on the other hand, was fresh.
Individuals looking to pick up food have to sign up at Marie Wilkinson, and then can come in weekly, Johnson said. Aurora Interfaith doesn’t require individuals to sign up in advance, according to Galven.
At Marie Wilkinson, they are looking to add grocery stores to their rotation for pick-ups to supplement the loss of the Rooted for Good produce, Johnson said.
“It just comes down to quantity,” Seppelfrick said. “When we have to stretch what we have.”
Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry officials said demand has been increasing in recent months, especially at East Aurora High School. Last week, it served 275 students, Johnson said, and recently upped its distributions to once a week at the school.
“It was not a good time for us to lose (the produce from Rooted for Good),” Johnson said.
The food pantry gives food out to students with their families in mind, however, Seppelfrick said.
“We also know that they are, basically, the point people for their family,” he said on Wednesday. “Food is a communal experience, and to be able to foster that is very important in the home.”
On Wednesday, Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry had more produce than usual, Seppelfrick said. Two local grocery stores had refrigeration issues, he said, and they donated the produce they couldn’t use to Marie Wilkinson. But the amount they get from local grocery stores varies from week to week.
The farmers who Rooted for Good purchased from have also expressed concern about the future of their business, since the organization had provided them a consistent source of income.
Mei Shao, who runs Sunny Oaks Farm in Sycamore, said she’s been left with harvested mushrooms that she’d expected to go to Rooted for Good before they decided to reduce what they’re purchasing.
“It takes time to grow, it takes time to harvest, takes time to pack it, takes time to distribute,” Shao said. “Are you like, ‘Hey, mushroom … government canceled my funds.’ No, it’s going to be rotten, and they’re all wasted.”
Shao is continuing to sell to grocery stores and other buyers, but she criticized the federal government’s decision to cut the program for its lasting effects on local farmers.
“They said … everything needed producing in the United States, but then you did this to us,” Shao said of the recently-proposed tariffs and USDA grant cuts. “It’s already very difficult for small farmers.”
But, as Aurora-area food pantries look to other sources of produce, they worry what will happen down the line.
“Before the grant, we were scrambling for produce,” Arko said, noting that the effects might not be felt immediately. “It might take a while before we really see the difference because we’re coming into the season where fresh produce is more available.”
Arko said in an email that they are preparing for “the inevitable surge we would see if a recession becomes reality, and if benefits such as SNAP and (Medicaid) are slashed.”
But, with the Local Food Purchase Assistance program set to expire in June and funding for the next few months uncertain, Rooted for Good is lamenting the grant’s end just a year after it was first implemented.
“I figured that at some point it might end,” Edwards said. “I guess it’s ending a lot sooner than what I had expected because it’s really just, like, it really just started. … To have it end, it’s just disappointing.”
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
