A last minute surge in Evanston registrations brought the number of families served by this year’s Mayor’s Holiday Food, Book and Toy Drive in Evanston to 400.
Ken E. Cherry, recreation manager of the Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center, said the boost came from registration dates being extended for the 2022 program.
The Mayor’s Holiday Food, Book and Toy Drive in Evanston has existed for more than a decade, offering registered households a bag of canned and boxed food items, a bag of toys in a black covered bag — for surprise factor and privacy requested by elves and Santa Claus for kiddies — plus a sizable turkey.
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The number of recipient families this year is pretty typical Cherry said, but the late sign ups caught them a bit by surprise.
“We extended the sign up over the weekend because it was supposed to cut off on Friday (Dec. 9) but I looked at the numbers and they were kind of low so we extended the sign up and we had a surge, we had almost 100 sign ups just Monday,” Cherry said. “I don’t know if people forgot, I don’t know what happened, but the numbers got to where they needed to get.”
Cherry speculated that people may have went grocery shopping over the weekend prior to find food prices untenable. Eggs, for example, have quadrupled in price or more at some stores due to shortages, supply chains and economics.
“Inflation is real,” Cherry said. “I think the grocers know we have to pay it.”
About the Mayor’s Holiday Food, Book and Toy Drive in Evanston, “It’s just a wonderful thing to touch the people in Evanston like we do,” Cherry said. “It’s beautiful, today (Dec. 14) is a great day for me. I love greeting the families … it’s just wonderful to meet the families.”
Families used to come inside the Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center for their bags. A drive up format was added amid the COVID-19 pandemic and this format stayed, although some people walked up early Wednesday morning, waiting outside, or came inside the lobby to receive items.
Cherry said they’ll probably stick with the drive up format from now on since it’s much easier for them to manage.
“I think the silver lining to COVID is that a lot of us learned what’s really important,” Cherry said. “A lot of stuff we focused on and did, got cut off during the pandemic … and now we’re making better decisions. We know what’s more important, especially family, I think people are more in tune with family more than anything now. During the pandemic, that’s all you had was your family.”
The first motorist to queue on Foster Street arrived about 6:45 a.m. Distribution was scheduled to begin at 7:30 a.m. but the line was served earlier when cars began stacking up east down Foster Street.
Before sunrise, Cherry and assistant Javahn Dudley of Evanston, of the Evanston Township High School Class of 2003, set up blue overhead tent coverings to help keep the staged red reusable grocery bags dry.
One of the tents skimmed away in the wind but was safely caught by hand and secured past the sudden gusts. Sunrise was at 7:10 a.m. so Cherry and Dudley did much of the set up in the dark along Foster Street.
But Dudley and Cherry bested weather conditions and City of Evanston colleagues arrived to help in the blustery conditions. Cherry briefly left to go pick up frozen turkeys at a local grocery store driving a box truck.
Dudley enjoys this part of the job because he gets to make families feel happy around the holiday season.
“It’s free to be nice, it’s free to compliment people, it’s free to be genuine, and it takes nothing,” Dudley said “It doesn’t even take effort to be nice.”
In festive holiday headwear and rain poncho, Briana Jenkins of Skokie, assistant program coordinator, was among Evanston city employees assisting early Wednesday.
“It’s just something that we always look forward to every year,” Jenkins said, a regular presence at the Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center. “We try to get the best toys and all the good food to give to everyone because we love our Evanston families.”
Matt Poole, recreation manager at the Evanston Ecology Center, said, “This is always a nice event.”
Karie Angell Luc is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.