People who need food assistance in Riverside or the surrounding communities now have another place to turn to.
As of this week, the Broadview Food Pantry is operating out of the Riverside Presbyterian Church, 116 Barrypoint Road. The food pantry will be open Mondays from 5:30-7:30 p.m. and Tuesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., director Judy Brown-Marino told the Landmark. People can receive food two times a month.
The pantry and church will continue to operate as distinct entities, she said. The agreement for the church to host the pantry came about after the pantry found itself in need.
“Our food pantry was started in the village of Broadview in 1995, and from ‘95 until 2011, the gentleman who started the pantry operated out of the Broadview Park District. In 2011, he moved the operation to the Community Presbyterian Church in Broadview,” she said. “Last year, that congregation voted to dissolve. They were elderly, not terribly affluent, dwindling congregation; I understand why they did.”
She said the pantry closed in December after making distributions for Thanksgiving.
“We started reaching out to see what spaces might be available that we could afford and what our options might be, and one of the organizations that we reached out to was the Presbyterian Church in Riverside,” she said. “It turns out they had actually wanted to open a food pantry for a few years, but the Greater Chicago Food Depository wasn’t taking on new agencies.”
Lynda Nadkarni, the church’s preschool director, said she felt like it was a great opportunity when Brown-Marino approached her about it. While the church has operated a “little food pantry” that “runs like a little library” for about a decade, Nadkarni said, members of the congregation wanted to do more.
“Food insecurity’s always been something that the church has been concerned about,” she said. “When Judy first came here, I was delighted because I knew it was something that was on the church’s radar already. If there was any way that we could help a different agency doing the same work that we wanted to see in this area, we would be fully on board for that.”
While anyone is allowed to visit the pantry, Brown-Marino said, it officially serves Broadview, Hines, Riverside and North Riverside. As of opening within the church, the pantry is expanding to include Lyons and McCook.
“When it comes to things like the holiday distributions, we may be limited to people in our service area” due to the rules of the Greater Chicago Food Depository, with which the pantry is registered, she said.
Brown-Marino said people are limited to two visits a month. At the previous location, the pantry received food each week from the Depository, but after the move, it will only receive food twice a month, she said, which will change the kinds of foods it can offer to ensure it will all last between deliveries.
In Broadview, the pantry was paired up with two businesses for food rescue — taking the food they can’t sell and giving it away. Brown-Marino said she hopes the pantry will be able to resume that activity after becoming more established in Riverside.
“We still are able to offer a pretty wide variety. Not just the non-perishable canned goods and macaroni and cheese and rice, those types of things. We offer fresh produce,” she said. “Almost always potatoes, onions, various types of fruit” as well as baked goods.
The pantry also carries food and supplies for pets, she said.
One of the biggest challenges, Nadkarni and Brown-Marino said, will be ensuring that the pantry’s previous clients from Broadview can continue to access it.
“We had quite a few clients at the location in Broadview that would walk to the pantry because it was so centrally located to the whole residential area there. When our clients would leave the pantry, they’d leave, most of the time, with a couple big boxes of food. That can be kind of difficult if you’re trying to take a bus,” Brown-Marino said. “Aside from that, there’s a few things we’ve had to do, like upgrade electric service to accommodate our refrigerators and freezers.”
If you want to volunteer, Brown-Marino said you should come by the pantry in-person rather than reaching out electronically.
“To be able to sit together, get a feel for that person and what their abilities, what their interests are, their availability — that’s often accomplished much more quickly talking face-to-face,” she said.
“I think I know a fair amount about food pantries, but until I actually walked into it in Broadview and saw it in action — it’s very different to see how it works rather than to imagine from what you read on paper,” Nadkarni added. “I think that’s another reason why people stopping by is a great idea.
Despite the challenges, both said they were excited to have the pantry open and begin helping people in need.
“You grow. You adjust. You adapt,” Brown-Marino said.
