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WINTER 2021
WAYS TO GIVE THIS
HOLIDAY SEASON
P. 3
GRANTS CONTINUE
TO EVOLVE PANTRY
EXPERIENCE
P. 4-5
TRANSFORMING NEW JOB TRAINING
PROGRAM CHANGES
COMMUNITIES LIVES
P. 7
Caption: Volunteer Niya Scott stocks shelves at the Free-N-Deed Market in Dolton
(photo by Alyssa Schukar for the Food Depository).
Calendar of Events PERSPECTIVE
DECEMBER A few weeks ago, I joined other Food Depository staff to meet with members of
Guinness Gives Back the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation.
Through December 31
GAGDC is a community-based organization working to revitalize Chicago’s
Guinness is selling limited-edition
eight-packs of Guinness pint cans that
South Side. Our partnership with its team started in response to the COVID-19
benefit the Food Depository. Guinness crisis, when they hosted emergency food popups in the summer of 2020, and
will donate $100,000 to food banks has been ongoing ever since.
across the country, and an additional
$1 each time a consumer shares about As the event closed, Linda Johnson, GAGDC’s Director of Housing and Senior
the program via social media channels. Services, turned to us with tears in her eyes and said, “Thank you for allowing
Learn more at GuinnessGivesBack.com. us to serve.”
Line 39 I have thought about this moment so many times. I am humbled by the
Through December 31 leadership of people like Linda, the partnership of organizations like GAGDC
Line 39 Wines is supporting food banks and so many other organizations who have stood strong during the pandemic.
across the country through its Plate It
Forward program, including a donation Even in a time of overwhelming need, powerful and positive things are happening
of $5,000 to the Greater Chicago in Auburn Gresham and communities across Chicago and Cook County.
Food Depository. Consumers can find
promotional Line 39 wine bottles in Providing food can be the catalyst for larger conversations between neighbors
retail stores. focused on transforming their neighborhood with strength and vitality.
Christmas Holiday Just as a holiday meal brings us together with loved ones, food can bring a
December 24–25, 27 community together to build lasting change.
Food Depository closed
As I reflect on what I’m most grateful for this holiday season, I think about our
JANUARY
partners who have done heroic work week after week throughout these difficult
New Year's Holiday times. I think about our neighbors who show tremendous courage as they seek
December 31–January 1 help in a time of need. I think about our volunteers, supporters and the Food
Food Depository closed
Depository staff who have continued to step up during this ongoing crisis.
One of the things I’m most grateful for is to be part of a community that cares so
deeply about its neighbors in need of food. For families struggling with hunger,
you are fueling their hopes and lifting their spirits. You are helping transform
our community from one where people are worried where their next meal is
coming from into a vibrant place where everyone has the food they need and
opportunities to thrive.
Supporters like you not only lift up our neighbors in need, but also our network
of partners selflessly serving on the front lines. In this issue, you’ll read about
several of our equity grant recipients who are looking to meet the demand
caused by the pandemic and systemic inequities.
Going forward, our community needs us to remain steadfast in our dedication to
ending hunger. In this newsletter, you’ll learn a little more about one of the ways
you can be a part of our exciting future. The Food Depository’s plan to break
ground on a new facility and expand our prepared meal programs is returning
after a pause during the pandemic.
Connect with us! We have so much work in front of us, but we also have a chance to change the
@FoodDepository story of food access in Chicago and Cook County—to be a part of something far
greater than ourselves.
/FoodDepository
Thank you for your support which makes this work possible—thank you, as
@FoodDepository Linda Johnson said, for allowing us to serve.
/FoodDepository
Search Greater Chicago
Food Depository
Kate Maehr
Executive Director and CEO
2 I Food for Thought
WAYS TO GIVE THIS
HOLIDAY SEASON
Photo by Carolina Sanchez for the Food Depository.
As our community strives to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic,
too many of our neighbors across Cook County are unsure about
how they are going to put food on the table this winter.
Here are some of the ways you can take part in the season of giving.
Volunteer your time
The Food Depository is still in need of in-person volunteers to help pack food
for our hundreds of community partners. Staff maintain state and national
health guidelines and have implemented their own safety policies. This includes
mask requirements, social distancing and extra cleanings of our facility.
Check out chicagosfoodbank.org/volunteer to find available volunteer sessions.
Participate in fundraising campaigns
Fundraising campaigns combine charitable support with your everyday
activities and purchases. Each year, local businesses including grocery stores The Food Depository offers volunteer
sessions Tuesday through Saturday
and restaurants, team up with the Food Depository to set aside part of their
every week.
holiday-time sales to help our neighbors in need.
To learn about our holiday campaigns and events, go to the calendar on Page 2
and visit chicagosfoodbank.org/ongoing-partnerships.
Food drives
As we continue to navigate this pandemic, virtual food drives are a great
way to get involved without leaving home. Not only are they accessible, but
they’re also cost-effective. Virtual drives, which will take place on our new and
improved online platform, allow the Food Depository to directly purchase our
most needed items, including fresh produce. It’s also the best way to stretch
your dollars. Every $1 can help provide food for three meals.
To organize a drive or participate in an existing one, go to myfooddrives.org
Give a gift Virtual food drives allow the Food
Depository to directly purchase needed,
A tribute or memorial gift is one way to help feed families while honoring a
nutritious items like fresh produce.
special occasion—like the holidays—or a loved one’s memory. For businesses
or foundations still working from home, tribute gifts can also recognize
employees or clients in lieu of an in-person holiday party.
Learn more at chicagosfoodbank.org/tribute-memorial-giving/
Shop at our store
Looking for the gift that keeps on giving? Net profits from the Food Depository’s
store supports our mission. Shop our merch—including clothes, face masks, bags,
drinkwear and more—at chicagosfoodbank.org/store
Greater Chicago Food Depository I 3
SERVING FOOD
AND DIGNITY Free-N-Deed Market volunteer Anthony
Equity grant partners strive to create
Pinckney fills a guest’s car with groceries.
more 'personable' experience
“So if the Son sets you free, you will Scott is the founder of the nearby The Food Depository continues to
be free indeed.” American Association of Single Parents, distribute grants to support our
a social service organization that partners. Here are some other stories
As Dr. Nicole Scott was deciding on a
supports one-parent households. All of of recent grant recipients and their
name for her food pantry, that Bible
her work is inspired by her experience plans of transformation:
verse—John 8:36—spoke to her.
as a single mom to her son. One of the
“That’s really what I want to be able primary needs Scott once had—and
to do, is liberate people from food many of the parents she currently
All Things
insecurity,” Scott said during one of serves has—is food assistance. Through Christ
the first distributions at the new
Free-N-Deed Market.
“That was me,” she recalled. “That was West Englewood
me years ago.”
At the All Things Through Christ
Open three days a week, Scott Ministry, service is a family legacy.
hopes to eventually serve up to 50
Community matriarch Samella
households a day. With a shopping
McKenzie founded the ministry
cart and help from a volunteer, guests
and its pantry in 1998 out of her
are able to make their own selections
husband’s church, Hopewell
from the aisles of produce, meat, dairy,
Missionary Baptist. She led the pantry
dry and frozen goods and donated
until her death in June 2020. One
home goods. The site also includes an
of her last requests was that her
indoor waiting area and a classroom
children keep it going.
Dr. Nicole Scott, founder of the Free-N-Deed where she plans to have nutrition and
Market (photos by Alyssa Schukar for the financial literacy classes.
Food Depository) Members of the McKenzie family. The
“This will hold me for a while,” ministry’s founder, Samella McKenzie,
Phricette Powell, 55, said about had 10 children, all of whom remain
This fall, Free-N-Deed opened in south the food she was able to pick up involved in some way.
suburban Dolton. The pantry is the from Free-N-Deed. “God is good.
result of a Food Depository equity I’m just thankful.”
grant distributed earlier this year.
First and foremost, Scott’s priority
Thanks to our generous donors, is to serve everyone with dignity.
the Food Depository has distributed She doesn’t want anyone to feel the
$9 million since the start of the stigma or shame that is too often
COVID-19 pandemic to strengthen associated with food assistance.
the emergency food system across
“It’s not ‘I need to go to the pantry,’
Chicago and Cook County with
but (instead) ‘I go over to the market
a priority on Black and Latino
and get my fresh produce,’” she said.
communities.
4 I Food for Thought
Today, the McKenzies’ 10 children “This was (our mother’s) vision,” said
all remain involved in the ministry Rev. Gwendolyn Sampson, their
in some way. Not only have they daughter and All Things Through
continued to provide food to their Christ’s director of operations. “Her
neighbors every Saturday morning, mission was to provide services
but with their equity grant from the and resources that bring hope to a
Food Depository, they plan to build community in crisis. And it truly is a
on their mother’s creation. community in crisis. The smiles that
Frankye Parham
would be on their faces—the joy.”
With the funding, the ministry is
remodeling part of the church
basement to allow guests to walk Coppin “We’re starting over,” said director
through and select their own food. Frankye Parham. Coppin Community
The grant will also help pay for a
Community Center Center is the nonprofit arm of the
new waiting area, an ADA-accessible Washington Park Coppin Memorial AME Church on the
entryway and additional cold storage. city’s South Side.
After being closed for more than
The cold storage enables them to
a year after the pandemic first hit, A grant from the Food Depository
offer fresh produce, meat, dairy and
Coppin Community Center is now is helping pay for additional cold
other perishables more consistently.
focused on rebuilding. storage to hold more fresh groceries,
Pamela McKenzie, who helped her new floors and a bathroom remodel.
Before the pandemic, Parham and
mother-in-law start the pantry, now In the improved space, Parham
her team of volunteers operated
serves as its coordinator. She hopes said she plans to create more of a
a popular pantry that served 120-
the improvements will make visiting the shopping experience for guests. This
150 households each week, a soup
pantry a more personable experience will provide them with more choice
kitchen and an after-school program
and allow them to serve more families. as well as ease the work of the
for local youth. All of it closed in
volunteers, a group that is now half of
“It’ll be wonderful,” she said. “For so long, March 2020, Parham explained, to
what it was pre-COVID.
we didn’t have the room or the capacity protect the volunteers, most of whom
to do that kind of client experience.” were older and had underlying health Parham, who helped found the
conditions. Community Center in 2011, is passionate
Though Samella
In June 2021, about feeding her neighbors, referring
didn’t live to
when vaccines to it as her “ministry.”
see it happen,
became widely
the McKenzies’ “There’s a need, and God put it in my
available and
children know way,” she said about what keeps her
the city began
their parents dedicated to the mission. “That’s what
to reopen, the
would be thrilled I always say. If I didn’t want to do it,
center started
over the ministry’s he would sidestep me. So, it’s in my
The Food Depository’s equity grant paid back slowly—
evolution. for two additional cold storage units at way. I’ve gotta do it.”
reopening just
Coppin Community Center.
the food pantry.
Greater Chicago Food Depository I 5
Q&A: SOUTH SIDE
DEVELOPER ON
BRINGING CHANGE,
CREATING JOBS
The Food Depository's expanded facility
will include kitchens to create prepared Leon Walker, real estate developer and Food Depository board member.
meals for Cook County residents in need.
Expansion project A native of Chicago’s South Side, renowned community developer Leon
Walker’s passion for projects that uplift and transform South Side communities
back on track has only grown over the past two decades. Since 2013, Walker’s also served on
the Food Depository’s board of directors.
The Greater Chicago Food
During a recent interview at the office of his firm DL3 Realty, Walker shared
Depository is moving forward with
his thoughts on his unique model of community development and how it
its plan to build a new prepared
intersects with the Food Depository’s work.
meals kitchen that will produce
more than 2 million meals per year. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
In March 2020, the Food
How do you see your development work intersecting with the Food
Depository was weeks away
Depository’s work toward ending hunger?
from breaking ground on a new
facility that would allow it to All we’re seeing at the Food Depository, if we continue on status quo, is
produce healthy meals for at-risk increasing need and insecurity. The need has only grown over time. It’s grown
populations. As the COVID-19 to more than even the Food Depository can accomplish over time. It outstrips
pandemic unfolded, the project what we can provide.
was paused with the commitment
If you’re starving and hungry, you have to address that. That’s the urgent
to incorporate what we've learned
need. I like to focus on—how do we bend the curve of need in the future? And
about the changing emergency
the answer is jobs and, in particular, local jobs in the neighborhood. If you
food landscape to shape and
don’t have hope, you don’t make different choices about the future. If you
inform our future work.
don’t have a job, you can’t provide for your family in a way that’s connected to
The plan is now to break ground the larger economy in a productive way. It goes hand in hand. It’s not separate.
on the new facility in mid-2022.
Once constructed, the Food What do you think about how the Food Depository has shifted its
Depository will prepare thousands strategic focus toward equity in recent years?
of nutritious and delicious meals
It makes total sense. It’s getting out of that paternalistic mindset. I learned this in
per day—including medically
my work in the communities. Developers can’t think that they know the answer,
tailored meals—for older adults,
that they know best. We have to humble ourselves. With that comes an approach
people with disabilities and other
and an attitude that is more engaging and more focused on equity initiatives. We
people who may struggle to
know the need is bigger than we can meet. Are we just about trying to feed the
access food.
need? Or are we really trying to be a part of structurally changing the equation?
Look out for upcoming updates,
It requires engagement, it requires strengthening partner ties, it requires
including how you can support
building up our partners so they can do for self more than we can do for them.
this important project, at
It’s that fundamental shift in attitude to start seeing the humanity in the people
chicagosfoodbank.org.
that we work for. And trying to get them in position to be part of the solution.
Read the full Q&A at chicagosfoodbank.org/blog.
6 I Food for Thought
NEW JOB TRAINING PROGRAM
PROVIDES NEW OUTLOOKS ON LIFE
Students in the Food Depository's supply chain job training programs learn the skills necessary for jobs in warehousing and logistics.
(photos by Kenneth Johnson for the Food Depository).
If given the chance, Jose “But what we wanted to do was go
Rivera knew he could prove
himself.
“As a food bank, we are a part into another industry, especially one
we really know and we excel in,” said
The Humboldt Park native,
of the supply chain industry. Malik Kemokai, director of workforce
52, was released from So it really made sense for development strategy and operations.
federal prison in November
2020. Upon his release, he
us to create a program that “As a food bank, we are a part of
the supply chain industry,” he said.
was determined to set a new teaches our participants “So it really made sense for us to
path forward—for himself create a program that teaches our
and his family.
things like warehousing, participants things like warehousing,
“Losing my family was the transportation and logistics.” transportation and logistics.”
worst thing ever to me,” he Malik Kemokai This July, Rivera and about a dozen
said of the eight years he other graduates were part of the
spent away from his wife 12-week program’s first graduating
and children on drug charges. Before Not long after his release, Rivera class. With his new certifications and
his latest sentence, Rivera said he’d heard about the Food Depository’s experience in tow, he accepted a job
been in and out of incarceration new Certified Logistics and on the Food Depository’s receiving
since he was 14. Warehouse Technician program, team, helping load and unload trucks
a paid 12-week supply chain and stocking deliveries of food.
industry job training available to
Rivera’s proud of his accomplishments
unemployed or underemployed
and the chance to have a fresh start.
Cook County residents. The
students’ work directly with the “From day one, they greeted me
Food Depository’s operations team, with open arms,” he said. “Not too
receiving hands-on instruction on many people are willing to give you
the warehouse floor. that chance, and here they gave me
that chance.”
The training is one of two
programs offered as part of the We are grateful for the many
Food Depository’s new supply individuals, foundations and
Jose Rivera chain career path program, which companies who have made this
began earlier this year. This program possible. To find the full
represents an expansion of the story and video about this program,
“I knew that in order for me to not
organization’s job training, which visit chicagosfoodbank.org/blog.
lose my family again, I’ve got to
for two decades has specialized in
establish a different way of life, a To learn more about this and other Food
hospitality industry careers.
different way of thinking, a different Depository job training programs, visit
way of acting,” he said. chicagosfoodbank.org/job-training.
Greater Chicago Food Depository I 7
Greater Chicago Food Depository
4100 W. Ann Lurie Place
Chicago, IL 60632
773-247-FOOD
chicagosfoodbank.org
BancoDeAlimentosChicago.org
HEALTHY STUDENT
MARKETS ARE BACK!
After coming mostly to a halt when schools closed in 2020,
Healthy Student Markets are making a return. Healthy
Student Markets, a Food Depository program that offers
city and suburban families access to fresh groceries, is now
back in nearly 30 schools in priority communities across
Chicago and Cook County. Parents at partnering locations
can pick up both produce and shelf-stable items during
distributions at their child’s school.
To learn more about programs like these and how to
support, visit chicagosfoodbank.org/get-involved.
CONNECT @FoodDepository @FoodDepository
Search Greater Chicago
Food Depository
WITH US! /FoodDepository /FoodDepository
8 I Food for Thought
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