Volunteers came to the Northern Illinois Food Bank Wednesday in Geneva to pack 1,250 emergency boxes for those in need filled with some hard-to-find products during the coronavirus outbreak.
“We’re part of a fitness group at the Vaughan Athletic Center who like to volunteer together,” Aurora resident Brenda Sivon said at the event.
The 28-pound boxes were packed with household disinfectant wipes and dish soap and personal necessities including toilet paper, along with some nonperishable goods, for distribution to the region’s food pantries in greatest need, officials said.
About 50 volunteers worked from rows of stations in an assembly line fashion in a warehouse of the food bank.
“We come once a month with about 30 people from our group. Today we have six volunteers. We’re going to be coming once a week during this time,” Maria Vernon of Aurora said. “The food bank needs our help – a lot of volunteers are canceling.”
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Northern Illinois Food Bank anticipates an increasing need as local, state and federal governments impose measures to contain the spread of infection.
COVID-19 has put jobs at risk and forced families to stay home with their children while schools are closed, the food bank’s Communication Manager Elizabeth Gartman said.
“This is definitely uncharted territory for us,” Gartman said of the COVID-19 emergency boxes.
The Northern Illinois Food Bank provides food to more than 900 network partners that equates to about 1.2 million meals per week, officials said.
For workers suddenly without a regular paycheck due to businesses closing to contain the spread of the coronavirus, there has already been an influx for assistance at food pantries, she said.
“We focused on what was a reasonable quantity we could handle to get the emergency boxes out sooner than later,” she said.
Toilet tissue has been difficult to stock at the Northern Illinois Food Bank for those in need, Gartman said.
“We have limited quantity of supplies as everyone else,” Gartman said.
Typically 77% of food products at the food bank are donated, but that too has changed since the coronavirus outbreak across the country.
“We are seeing a shift in the amount of donated products as retailers, grocery stores and food centers send products to other locations as part of their response to the crisis,” she said. “We also purchase food, it’s just that now with the shift in donated products we have to buy more than we typically do.”
There has also been a change in the number of volunteers who come to regular Wednesday volunteer days.
“Last week alone we had 500 volunteers cancel for shifts they signed up for over the next month. We are largely seeing a drop off on our volunteer sign-ups at all four of our facilities,” she said.
The network relies heavily on volunteers and many of them are seniors who are a high-risk group in the coronavirus outbreak.
Some of the other volunteers that have cancelled were school groups.
“This is a work in progress as things change so quickly and develop over the days and weeks. We are trying to navigate carefully,” Gartman said.
Residents can visit solvehungertoday.org to donate to the Northern Illinois Food Bank.
Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.