What’s star on your Christmas dinner menu?
Turkey?
Ham?
How about nothing?
That many Americans face each day unsure of where their next meal is coming from is a national disgrace.
One in seven Americans is food insecure; that is, they can’t be sure when they next will eat.
And hunger doesn’t just happen to someone else in some other place. In Oak Park alone, there are an estimated 7,000 food insecure persons, according to the Oak Park-River Forest Food Pantry.
Alleviating hunger is the goal of the pantry, not just during the holidays but all year because hunger takes no holiday.
Last year, the Oak Park-River Forest Food Pantry provided groceries, meat, produce and dairy products to 15,000 local families in Oak Park, River Forest, Forest Park, River Grove, Elmwood Park, Schiller Park, Berwyn, Stickney and the Austin and Humboldt Park neighborhoods of Chicago.
Operated primarily by volunteers, the nonprofit pantry is located in the lower level of First United Church of Oak Park, 848 Lake St.
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It distributes food to clients from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays, 7 to 8:30 p.m. the first Wednesday of the month and from 3:30 to 5 p.m. the second, third, fourth and fifth Wednesday of the month.
Donations can be brought to the food pantry from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays, 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays.
The Oak Park-River Forest Food pantry also welcomes monetary donations. Volunteers are needed. And organizing a food drive for the pantry is a worthwhile activity for community and youth groups.
To find out more about the food pantry, call 708-386-1324 or visit www.oprffoodpantry.org.
There is no more basic need than food.
There is no better way to help those who hunger than by helping to feed them.
The Oak Park-River Forest Food Pantry offers the opportunity for those who need to receive help.
And it offer the opportunity to those who can help to help.
Help if you can.
Paul Sassone is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.