Burr Ridge church begins offering food for many with its first food bank

Earlier this week, the Burr Ridge United Church of Christ hosted its first food bank for area families.

The giveaway started at 4 p.m. Monday, though as early as 3:30 p.m. half a dozen cars snaked through the parking lot, waiting for food.

The COVID-19 pandemic has left many jobless and in need of aid but Hannah Sundwall, the president of Burr Ridge United Church of Christ said the food bank idea predated the outbreak. She said the church had been searching for ways to better serve the community.

“So, the past couple of years we’ve been through an interim process and part of that was redefining who we are as a church,” said Sundwall. “In that process we really realized we want to be a community leader and we really want to be there for there to serve the members of the local community. And so, during when COVID happened, when quarantine happened, we wanted find out a way to reach out to those in need.”

The church, 15W100 Plainfield Road, brings parishioners from across the western suburbs, from Darien, Naperville, Willowbrook and beyond and, likewise, the food drive brought out recipients from across the region and across demographics.

Couples arrived, single men, single women, retired people as well as younger people _ all in need of food and, for some, donated children’s books. All received five boxes of food filled with fruit, vegetables, cereals, milk and other groceries.

One woman, Susan Janousek of Westmont, said she is on disability. She has been since prior to COVID _ the disease didn’t change much for her, though she said she’s now mostly just staying home. She’d been in need prior to the pandemic but, now, at least food was closer at hand.

“I looked up the foodbank location and it was so close to home,” she said.

Sundwall said her church reached out to the Northern Illinois Food Bank for food supplies and, in coordination with ethe West Suburban Community Pantry, they organized enough food to feed over 100 families.

Kristin Jachymiak, the director of operations at the West Suburban Community Pantry, said her group has seen a large uptick in needs since March, when COVID-19 shut down many businesses and led to a spike in unemployment.

“At the beginning of the pandemic our numbers increased anywhere from 40 percent to 50 percent,” Jachymiak said. “So yeah, the need has increased.”

These days the pantry is feeling close to 400 households per week. She said if people can help, they are happy to take donations whether that’s cash or food.

“Both are welcome,” Jachymiak said. “If we do have to purchase food, we do work with wholesalers and the Northern Illinois Food Bank and a dollar is like $8 dollars at a grocery store. If they donate, we can stretch their dollar very far in terms of purchasing food. But your staple items are always welcome.”

The West Suburban Community Pantry is located at 6809 Hobson Valley Drive, Suite 118 in Woodridge and Jachymiak said they accept a variety of food items Monday through Saturday.

Besides the standard non-perishable items, the food pantry accepts fresh and frozen items _ including frozen meats.

“We see a lot of young families, so we like to give all of our households milk and eggs too, and bread,” she said.

Jachymiak said the day’s food delivery should be able to serve 150 families.

The church also partnered with the Lyonsville Congregational Church. Sundwall said her church hadn’t run a pantry prior to Monday, but the Lyonsville Congregational Church had and they had been running short on food even prior to the pandemic and that inspired the Burr Ridge project.

“There are people that are struggling, and we want to be able to help in any way that we can,” Sundwall said.

Besides the food, Sundwall said Bernie’s Book Bank, a nonprofit that provides kids’ books to underserved children.

“They wanted to be able to participate in this event, so they donated a pallet of kids’ books we’ll be giving out today,” Sundwall said. The books included a broad selection from picture books for the very young to chapter books.

The food bank event began at 4 p.m. and continued for several hours into the evening. Sundwall said the idea crystalized in June and since the church had never done anything like it, seeing a line in the parking lot by 3:30 p.m. was nice.

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“To be able to see people lined up, it is very rewarding,” she said.

Besides the food bank, Sundwall said her church offers a meeting space for Alcoholics Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous and she hopes to offer more community outreach events in the future. COVID, however, has stymied new programing this year.

“There have been many programs that we wanted to launch in the beginning of the year, in February, and a lot of that has been put on hold for in person, but we’ve been managing virtual events,” she said. “We offer virtual fellowship hours for our members and I’m hoping to do community events as well.”

The church is _ as of this month _ now offering in person services as well. The church held their first in-person service Aug. 2. Inside the chapel, every other pew is marked off in accordance with social distancing protocol but even so, Sundwall said attendance has been good, all things considered.

“We’re a smaller congregation to begin with, but the very first Sunday we had 25 people which is basically the amount we have on a summer Sunday,” she said. “We don’t have air conditioning so people don’t always want to sit in the heat, but there’s something about being with your church family and worshipping together that is not the same as watching your church.”

That said, the church still offers virtual services.

To find out more about those services as well as future community events, visit the church online at www.brucc.org and Sundwall said her congregation is active on social media.