There were 245 cars in line at a weekly Free Food Pop-Up last week in Park Forest and another 238 that afternoon in Steger as Barb Dorman of Crete and Illinois Partners In Hope continue to distribute food to those in line — no questions asked.
Since her first such venture for veterans last November, Dorman estimates she’s served more than 5,000 residents.
“We started doing it once a month,” she says. “Then it went to once every two weeks and then to between one to six days a week.”
The food comes from the Partners in Hope warehouse in New Lenox, which is supplied by Dot Foods, one of the country’s largest food redistributors. There is no direct contact between volunteers who distribute the food and those behind the wheel of the car.
You roll up the front window and open your trunk. That’s it. This past week, volunteers distributed bread, turkey breasts, pizza dough, frozen pies and soy milk. No one is forced to take everything, but Dorman says there are few turndowns.
These pop-ups are in Park Forest, Steger and Richton Park, but Dorman wants to enlarge the area with similar sites in Glenwood, Sauk Village and University Park.
But she must deal with those who hoard for themselves or equate charity with greed, and daily go from site to site, taking all that is offered then peddling the wares to others for profit. To stop this, Dorman is implementing a check-off system complete with car window cards and advance registration.
To register, recipients must sign in on the Free Food Pop-Up page on Facebook, then show a picture ID while in line. They get a window card to signify they are in the right location.
The new normal
Despite today’s hunker down mentality, most village services continue. As an example, the Park Forest Village Hall is closed, but community services carry on, despite a limited staff.
“It’s a delicate balance,” says village manager Tom Mick. “We have to be mindful of the welfare of our employees, but in the last three weeks since the shutdown we have handled everything from Freedom of Information requests to the sale of 17 homes.”
Both the Police and Fire departments have revamped staffing. Police Chief Chris Mannino wants officers use police cars as mobile offices as a calming presence for residents. Fire Chief Tracy Natyshok changed his department’s shift schedules from three days to four days to lessen the effect on an entire shift should one person fall ill.
Frontline dispatches
Our friend Amy Liu is an emergency room nurse in a Brooklyn, New York hospital. She caught the virus early on, recovered and was permitted to tend patients during the firestorm of cases in the city.
In a post to us she said in her shift “where, at one time by myself, I vented seven unstable patients and some ER patients on the side. All were COVID.” By the end of her shift, the longest waits for an intensive care unit bed was 70 hours, followed by 65 hours, then 50 hours.
“I am exhausted,” she said.
As of last Saturday, of the 234 deaths in Colorado attributed to the coronavirus only two have been in Boulder County, where our son-in-law, John Whitcomb, is an ICU nurse in the Boulder Community Hospital.
“The anxiety is overwhelming at time,” he writes. “it’s like waiting for a massive snowstorm that may be coming. “
Darrell Dalton
The virus took Darrell Dalton from us last week. He was 67 and diabetes put him at great risk. I telephoned him on his birthday March 30. He said he was doing well.
Darrell was a composer-arranger and sang with the Grande Prairie Singers, a musical organization for which I do some work. The last few years were extremely difficult for him physically and emotionally after the death of his beloved Karen in 2006, but he was a living Timex watch which took a licking but kept on ticking.
No matter his struggles, Darrell loved to tell jokes and each time we met we would exchange idle jests. Humor is in short supply today and someone who can laugh despite life’s travails is a person to hold close.
We could not and we are poorer as a result.
Jerry Shnay is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.