In July, John Dumas, administrative director of Brookfield’s Share Food Share Love food pantry, said the pantry could start to struggle around the current time of year due to previous cuts to food stamps. But now, he said, the local community has turned out to fill in the gaps.
“The community has been amazing. People have really stepped up. They know what’s going on; they understand the situation,” Dumas told the Landmark. “People get the idea that this is not, at some level, about politics. It’s not about whether you are a supporter of a particular party or a particular ideology. This is about the people. There are people who are not getting the food that they need.”
Dumas said he’s seen contributions of all shapes and sizes, from individuals bringing cans of food or checks to organizations hosting food drives to benefit the pantry, in response to pauses and cuts made by the federal government to food assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that provides food stamps.
He said businesses that have helped include Tischler’s, Swan Cleaners, Hollywood Motors, A Sound Education, Urban Mutt, Sway Dance, Daisy’s Treats and Bakery, GoodxTimes Barbershop, Hitzeman Funeral Home, Fill My Jar, the First National Bank and even Cantata Senior Living.
“The [Linda Sokol Francis Brookfield] Library has been incredible. We’ve actually had people going there pretty much every day now to empty their box because there’s so much food coming in there. They’ve been terrific. There’s too many [businesses] to even mention,” he said. “The schools, too. Brook Park [Elementary School] just did a huge collection for us. Kensington School in LaGrange did a big collection. Ogden School’s been collecting. It’s really hard to even name them all.”
Dumas said Share Food Share Love, at 9030 Brookfield Ave., and the Holy Guardian Angels parish food pantry, also called the St. Barbara Food Pantry, at 9300 W. 47th St., have teamed up to split food donations between them so as many people as possible can access it.
“Cash donations or donations that are made on credit cards, each organization is keeping those themselves, but all the food donations are going to be split up between the two,” he said.
The Holy Guardian Angels’ pantry is open on Mondays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. by appointment. Share Food Share Love is open on Tuesdays from 7-9 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon and runs first-come-first-serve.
“It’s a community issue, and we’re starting to learn more and more about these issues. We’ve always been told that they need to be solved on a national level, but now we understand that these are local issues. We can’t expect Washington or even Springfield to come through to take care of the people in our community. We need to do that ourselves,” Dumas said.
He said the pantry has even been able to help neighbors in need have the holiday meals they would otherwise struggle to pull together.
“We got a lot of turkeys that were donated. We gave out full Thanksgiving meals to everyone who came, which we weren’t sure we were going to be able to do. Now, we’re lining up to get the Christmas meals out,” Dumas said. “[Witherite Law Group in Chicago] made a huge cash donation, enough that we were able to buy hams for everybody for Christmas.”
While the pantry will never turn away donations of any kind, Dumas said the monetary kind provide more flexibility and utility to Share Food Share Love.
“We buy everything wholesale. We’re totally understanding that not everybody likes that — some people are nervous about giving an organization their money without knowing exactly what’s going on, and that’s difficult for us to provide, so food is great. It all goes out,” he said. “It’s very slow in the summertime when it comes to donations and things, so it helps us out that we have some cash. We put a lot of that money away, and we save it because we know that we’re going to need it later down the road, but we’re never going to turn away a food donation.”
He said seeing the community outpour has “energized” the volunteers who work to keep the pantry going, from the administrators to those taking shifts to pack bags of food or assist neighbors as they browse the pantry’s grocery-esque shelves.
“We’re just so thrilled now that we don’t have to turn anybody away or say, ‘We’re not going to have this,’” he said. “It looks like we’re going to be able to get right through this holiday and provide everything that we’ve had in the past and, in some cases, even more. It’s been great.”
