Share Food Share Love, the food pantry at 9030 Brookfield Ave., is seeing the highest levels of need ever as the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas approach, Administrative Director John Dumas said.
In an interview with the Landmark, Dumas said the pantry served 4,203 people through the end of October. Last year, in the same period, the pantry served 3,778 people. That means 425 more neighbors have walked through the pantry’s doors this year in search of food to put on their families’ plates, an increase of 11%, Dumas said, higher than the pantry has ever seen.
“We typically plan for 5% increases [each year]. That’s what our experience has been,” Dumas said. “This has been double what we’ve expected to grow in a given year. In our 11 years, I think that 5% has been about the biggest average growth that we’ve seen, so this has been unusual.”
Dumas said it was like the pantry had served 11 months’ worth of customers in 10 months. He said volunteer shifts on distribution days have increased in length from two and a half hours to three hours to accommodate the increased demand.
“We’ve been able to handle it, but it’s certainly not easy. It’s putting a strain on everything, all of our resources, food, finances,” Dumas said. “We’re seeing people who are saying things to us now like, ‘I never really needed the food pantry before, but now my money doesn’t go so far at the store, and I’m not able to get everything I need.’ They’re coming in a supplemental sense.”
Dumas said the current increase in demand is coming from pressures on both sides of the equation, with area residents facing rising costs while dealing with the consequences of cuts to safety nets like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps. The consequence is that some neighbors have less money that doesn’t go as far as it once did, leaving them nowhere else to turn.
“We’re seeing that mixture of people who really do have nothing and people who, maybe they were getting by before, but they’re certainly not getting by anymore with the cost increases and the cuts,” Dumas said. “The combination of the two is what’s set this apart from other times when we’ve seen increased demand.”
This kind of situation is one Dumas predicted in July 2025, following the passage of the Trump administration’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill. Even at that time, Dumas said a significant majority of the pantry’s visitors make some income but not enough to stretch across all of their necessities.
Dumas said the effect is only heightened as Share Food Share Loves stares down upcoming distributions for Thanksgiving and Christmas. In past years, the pantry has done its best to distribute as many staple holiday foods as it can so neighbors in need can celebrate in dignity.
Share Food Share Love gets nearly 30% of its food from the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which Dumas said lost a quarter of its operating budget this year, and that impact is trickling down.
“They’re giving us turkeys and hams, but they’re not giving us any of the side dishes or any additional items,” Dumas said. “We’re going out and getting that stuff ourselves. Tischler’s has been helping us, and we’re getting it wherever we can.”
Those extras include items like cranberry sauce, stuffing, canned vegetables, potatoes and gravy, Dumas said.
“We’re in pretty good shape for Thanksgiving, but as soon as we turn that over, it starts for Christmas. There’s no rest for that, so we’re starting to source that stuff already,” he said. “In a lot of cases, we know that people wouldn’t have holiday dinners without getting something here. We felt very strongly that we needed to do whatever we could to keep that going.”
How can I help?
It’s a refrain that’s been uttered again and again: The best way to help the food pantry support neighbors, Dumas said, is through monetary donations.
“We can go out and source this stuff probably more cheaply than they can afford to pay for it,” Dumas said. “We can buy things at wholesale levels. When people give us money, we can get more.”
But if that’s not your speed, Dumas said donations of food will never be turned away.
“Some people prefer to give food than money, and I get that. That’s their prerogative, and we certainly are not going to turn up our nose at any food donations,” he said.
Dumas said he felt hopeful the community in Share Food Share Love’s native Brookfield and beyond would rally around the pantry in its time of need.
“Like I said, this is an unusual combination of a loss of benefits and inflation — we don’t usually see them coming together — but even in the past, when we’ve had need and we’ve been in tight spots, the community has always jumped up and filled that space,” he said. “They get it. They get that we’re doing something here and the need for it. The need’s never been greater.”
