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THE FULL PLATE

I N T H I S I S S U E

WINTER 2016F E E D I N G O U R H U N G R Y N E I G H B O R S

485 volunteers attend September Pack-A-Thons

Volunteers pack more than 94,250 meals for hungry neighbors

Finding new ways to do more

Glen Ellyn Food Pantry remodels to meet rising need

I t’s hard to believe the holidays are

here, and we are closing the books on another successful year in our work to solve hunger in Northern Illinois.

As we head into one of the busiest times of year—one full of travel, get-togethers with friends and family from near and far, shopping trips and gift-giving, it’s important to keep the spirit of the holiday season grounded in gratefulness.

At Northern Illinois Food Bank, we are more thankful than ever for the generosity and support shown all year long by you—our amazing donors, volunteers and partners. Together, we were able to provide 62.5 million meals to our hungry neighbors this past fiscal year, including 2.5 million meals

to children and more than 180,000 meals to seniors.

Instead of nearly 79 million pounds of food going to waste, retailers, manufacturers and farmers across our service area chose to give their surplus food to the Food Bank so, together, we could put nutritious meals on tables all year long for our neighbors.

I so appreciate our outstanding volunteers who donated more than 155,000 hours to sort and repack this wonderful food for redistribution to our feeding sites, and our financial donors whose generosity makes our work possible.

And finally, a huge shout out to our agency members and feeding sites, who partner with us to serve our families in need, every day, with love and understanding.

Now is the time of year to be thankful, and I certainly am. Everyone that touches the Food Bank makes a difference. What you all do for us, and for your neighbors

in need, matters. And as I sit down at my own holiday table in the next few weeks, I’ll be thinking of you, grateful for all that you’ve done.

Wishing you a joyful holiday season,

Julie Yurko, President & CEO

P.S. – I’m proud to share that Northern Illinois Food Bank has just received its 13th consecutive 4-star rating from Charity Navigator—a milestone reached by less than one percent of all 1.5 million U.S. charities evaluated. So when you chose to invest in the Food Bank, you can be confident your gifts will be used wisely to serve our neighbors in need.

Starting the Season with thanksWinter 2016

Giving Opportunites

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Northern Illinois Food Bank is working toward its strategic goal of providing 75 million meals to our neighbors in need by the year 2020. Look for the following icons throughout this issue of The Full Plate accompanying stories that highlight the five pillars of our strategic plan:

Build Healthy Communities

Igniting the Community

Providing More Meals

Strengthening Leadership

Maintaining Frugality and Trust

Still time to Give What Matters

A fresh space to serve more hungry neighbors

Glen Ellyn Food Pantry

www.SolveHungerToday.org

The excitement is palpable as you walk into the newly-remodeled Glen Ellyn Food Pantry, nestled in the lower level of Grace Lutheran Church in downtown Glen Ellyn.

At the end of the bright, sunlit hallway is the check-in and waiting room, which smells deliciously of the baked goods that line the shelves in the back corner of the room. In the shopping area, fully-stocked shelves featuring a variety of beans, grains, canned goods, cereals and non-food household items are organized, waiting to be plucked from the shelves. Refrigerators in the back of the room are filled with milk, eggs, and on this day, are overflowing with family-sized bags of fruits and vegetables—foods often considered to be a luxury for those in need, despite being some of the most-needed.

The pantry, which took 9,000 appointments and distributed 900,000 pounds of food in 2015 alone, is back to business as usual after closing Memorial Day weekend and reopening its doors August 1. The Pantry underwent two months

of renovations which included new floors and shelving, and reconfiguring the space in order to meet the rising needs of those in the communities it serves, including Glen Ellyn and bordering towns of Wheaton, Lombard, Carol Stream, Lisle and Glendale Heights.

Executive Director Susan Papierski, who has led the pantry for the last eight of her 12 years with the organization, notes that there were two main goals for the pantry remodel: get more food to the growing number of those in need, and provide a better “client choice” shopping experience.

“Before, our clients used a paper shopping list and it was such a small, confined space that they couldn’t really shop around and put items in the cart themselves,” Papierski says. “But

now, they shop each aisle and put things right in their bags while our team fills other special items on their list, like produce.”

She adds that they now have the ability to handle more walk-ins, and due to greater awareness in the community, there has been new traffic to the pantry. In fact, in just the first two months after reopening its doors, they have already served 45 more appointments per week—an increase of 37.5 percent.

And although the remodel has quickly proved to be effective, Papierski already has her sights set on some new goals—like a record-setting Holiday Meal Box season. “The additional inventory space and ability to recover more product from our amazing retail partners will allow us to distribute over 600 meal boxes this holiday season,” she says. Beyond that, Papierski is also evaluating ways to add more appointments to their schedule. She notes that just two more appointments per week would serve an additional 750 families per year, ensuring even more of our hungry neighbors don’t have to miss a meal.

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1. New shelving creates additional space for more inventory and a better client shopping experience. 2. The pantry distributes 81 gallons of milk per week through the Food Bank's Milk2MyPlateTM program. 3. Jewel-Osco helped stock the pantry's shelves with more than 18,000 pounds of shelf-stable food. 4. Baked goods and fresh produce are among the items clients can choose for themselves as they shop the pantry.

"We are very blessed by the support of local retail partners, community organizations, churches, schools and individuals in our community who helped make it

possible for us to better help those in need!"

–SUSAN PAPIERSKI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GLEN ELLYN FOOD PANTRY

DID YOU KNOW?The Glen Ellyn Food Pantry began in 1979 when the church's high school youth group collected food for those in need. Today, the Pantry is a shared endeavor between 16 Glen Ellyn Churches, including:

Faith Lutheran ChurchFirst Congregational ChurchFirst Presbyterian ChurchFirst United

Methodist ChurchGlen Ellyn Bible ChurchGlen Ellyn Evangelical

Covenant ChurchGrace Lutheran ChurchSt. Barnabas

Episcopal Church

St. James RC ChurchSt. Luke Lutheran ChurchSt. Mark’s

Episcopal ChurchSt. Petronille RC ChurchSt. Thomas United

Methodist ChurchSeventh Day AdventistVillage Green

Baptist Church

W e rely on financial donations to provide nutritious food to 71,500 hungry

neighbors every week. Would you be willing to make a year-end gift to provide additional meals to families this holiday season?

Here’s how your gift might help a hungry neighbor: • $30 can provide a Holiday Meal Box with

turkey and trimmings for a family in need

• $100 can provide 2 gallons of milk to a child and their family every week for a year

• $250 can stock the shelves of a school pantry with $2,000 worth of groceries

• $500 can provide a weekly food-filled backpack for three kids for the entire year

Gifts received by December 31 may offer tax benefits. But the greatest benefit of all is knowing that your gift is helping to solve hunger in Northern Illinois.

Give what matters at www.SolveHungerToday.org.

244.5 MM E A L S D I S T R I B U T E Dacross 13 counties of Northern Illinois since 2011.

www.SolveHungerToday.org

YOU MATTER TO US

I n this issue of The Full Plate, we sat down with longtime volunteer Nancy Kawasaki,

a skills-based Volunteer Supervisor for the DirectConnect project team. Nancy helps ensure DirectConnect forms and reports are tracked, coded, and ready to be entered into the Food Bank's inventory system in a timely fashion, and helps train other volunteers on the team as well.

Tell us a little about yourself. I am a retired IT professional and have found my calling here in retirement. [This work] is something that I am very good at.

How long have you been a supporter/volunteer here? Off and on for the last several years, between bouts of unemployment and now in retirement.

What project do you currently work on? DirectConnect data entry. I have also done office work for the BackPack program and for the old volunteer hours tracking system. I worked a few times in the warehouse picking and sorting food, and have also worked on mailers.

What do you like most about the Food Bank, and how did you get involved? It provides food and support to so many people. It collects food from places where there is extra or where it may be wasted, and redistributes it to those who need some help. Besides, it is a fun place to volunteer and where the work is appreciated. There is nothing more basic than needing food, so becoming involved with this organization was an easy decision.

Any favorite memories or moments during your time at the Food Bank? Working with Steve [Ericson] and Hanah [Papp] is always good fun! I also enjoyed taking the bus tour earlier this year. We toured a DirectConnect store (a Jewel-Osco location), a food pantry and the Food Bank warehouse.

Fun fact about yourself: I grew up as an Army brat and was born in Okinawa, Japan where my father was stationed.

Any hobbies you enjoy? Knitting and taking cooking classes even though I don't cook all that much!

Hunger Action Month 2016

Hunger to do more drives big results in September

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While we have a rich 33-year history of serving our hungry neighborsacross Northern Illinois, in 2016 we celebrated the 5th anniversary ofopening our Geneva distribution center. Here’s a look at its impact:

A LOOK BACK AT 5 YEARS IN GENEVA

36 MILLION LBS.That’s like having 3,000 acres of land to grow our very own produce like apples or corn!

1,945 mobile pantry stops provided

16 MILLIONM E A L S

Each mobile pantry truck holds approximately 10,000 pounds of food and feeds an average of 100-150 families.

OF FRESH FRUITS & VEGETABLES DISTRIBUTED

Check out the full infographic on our website! www.solvehungertoday.org

Other Hunger Action Month high-

lights from across the Northern

Illinois Food Bank network included

but are not limited to:

• Northern Illinois University, in partnership with DeKalb County Food Security Council, held a Hunger Action Panel dis-cussing the impact of hunger on students and local residents.

• Six Flags Great America turned the iconic American Eagle rollercoaster orange throughout September for all to see that they support Hunger Action Month.

• Crete Public Library sported a display urg-ing visitors to “Go Orange” outside their front entrance, and shared how prevalent hunger is in their community with visitors.

• The Humanitarian Service Project in Wheaton organized a number of small awareness activities throughout the month, culminating in a bowling fundraiser, Strike Against Hunger.

• The Village of Plainfield held a communi-ty-wide food drive and collected nearly 7,500 pounds of food to benefit Plainfield Interfaith Food Pantry and St. Johns Food Pantry – two Food Bank agencies in Will County.

F rom making an appearance on ABC 7 Chicago’s morning news to celebrate Go Orange Day, to hosting not one, but three Pack-A-Thons at our centers, to the

numerous agencies who went orange or hosted Food and Fund drives, Hunger Action Month was bigger and better than ever before at Northern Illinois Food Bank this September! In total, the Food Bank hosted 27 events and raised awareness of hunger in our area to nearly 10,000 community members.

The main highlight of this year’s Hunger Action Month were our three Pack-A-Thons, inspired by the success of last year’s inaugural Pack-A-Thon at our Northwest Center in Rockford, when volunteers packed more than 50,000 pounds of food for our hungry neighbors in just one day. Although impressive, we knew we could do even more this year—and we did!

Rockford (2nd annual)

137 volunteers

36,308 lbs.canned food

Park City (Inaugural)

186 volunteers

50,392 lbs.meat

Lewis University (Inaugural)

160 volunteers

26,405 lbs.potatoes

Thank you to all the individuals and groups who joined us. We look forward to seeing you at next year’s Pack-A-Thons!

= 113,105 LBS

89.3%increase

105.9KV O L U N T E E R S

608,492 hours donated by

Equivalent to having an additional 58 full-time staff members each year for the last 5 years!

We distributed 33 million meals the year we moved into our Geneva distribution center. In 2016, we distributed 62.5 million meals.

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The Avnet team from Elgin takes a quick break before teeing off on the 8th hole.

The Dr. Pepper/Snapple team (Northlake) celebrates after a great hole on the green.

Chick-Fil-A Wheaton/Lombard provided breakfast of chicken biscuits and yogurt parfaits for Hunger Scramble golfers.

The Bimbo Bakeries USA team (Glendale Heights), a longtime partner of the Food Bank, celebrates after completing a successful round of golf at Cantigny during the Hunger Scramble.

AROUND THE FOOD BANK

www.SolveHungerToday.org

Thanks to all who joined us August 23 for the 18th annual Hunger Scramble Golf Outing presented by West Suburban Bank, and to all who helped make the event a success. Be sure to save the date for next year's outing on August 22, 2017 at Cantigny Golf Club. See you there!

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1. Brian McCaskey and Robbie Gould helped add some excitement and laughs while encouraging donations from the many guests. 2. Special guest host Jeff Joniak, Director of Sports WBBM, Newsradio 780 & 105.9 FM and Play-by-Play Announcer for the Chicago Bears pauses for a quick photo with event Co-Chair Brian McCaskey and Tiffany King and Julie Yurko of Northern Illinois Food Bank. 3. Chicago Bears mascot Staley gathered Stars and Cars Co-Chairs Brian McCaskey, Vice President of the Chicago Bears and Steve Foley Jr. of Foley Motors of Northbrook for a group photo along with the retired NFL and NBA guest athletes.

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Many thanks to Co-Chairs Brian McCaskey and Steve Foley Jr., and all who attended Stars and Cars on October 5. With your help, we raised over $137,000—which equates to over $1 million worth of food for our hungry neighbors. We are so grateful for your continued support!

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273 DEARBORN COURT GENEVA, ILLINOIS 60134

MARCHA Cup of Hope, hosted by Northern Illinois Food Bank’s Executive Women’s Council

Sunday, March 5 Hotel Arista, NapervilleNetworking opportunities with like-minded women, while enjoying an extensive and descriptive selection of loose teas, sparkling wine, finger sandwiches, fresh fruit, and assorted pastries and scones.

Learn more at www.SolveHungerToday.org/CupofHope.

APRILFoodie 5K Wheaton

Saturday, April 1 – 9 a.m. Cantigny Park, Wheaton Help us kick off our 4th annual Foodie 5K season at Cantigny Park in Wheaton, featuring a post-run festival with entertainment, food trucks and a kid’s zone to benefit Northern Illinois Food Bank.

Learn more at www.SolveHungerToday.org/Foodie5K.

ONGOING (THROUGH DECEMBER)Host an online Food & Fund Drive this holiday season!Create your own fundraising page and virtual food drive on Northern Illinois Food Bank’s website. Share your page with family, friends, and colleagues to get them involved and help feed our hungry neighbors!

Visit www.SolveHungerToday.org/FoodDrive to get started

FEBRUARYFull on Faith

February 11-18We invite all faith-based organizations to serve their community by participating in our week-long initiative dedicated to raising awareness of hunger through volunteering, hosting food and fund drives, discussing hunger and more.

Learn more at www.SolveHungerToday.org/FullOnFaith.

See our complete calendar of events at www.SolveHungerToday.orgUpcoming Activities

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn to find out the latest happenings at the Food Bank

Send comments/questions about articles in this issue to communications@northernilfoodbank.org

Save the date for our 2017 events!