Category: Programs

How Summer Hunger is Impacting Kids

It’s finally summer in Chicago! Kids in our community are free to play, explore, and have fun with their friends, but some will experience the “summer slide”. According to Feed the Children the summer slide happens when kids do not get the nutrition their bodies and minds need to keep developing and their abilities and knowledge regress instead of progressing over summer. 

For every four kids you see at the park laughing and playing tag, one will go home to a fridge and pantry with little to no food. 

It’s a sobering reality when we think about the fun of summertime and the mix of stressed-out parents trying to figure out how to provide enough nutritious food while struggling to make ends meet. 

Families that are enrolled in SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) have some help with paying for groceries, but during the school year, their kids are most likely receiving free or reduced breakfast and lunch at school. 

While this injustice is frustrating and saddening, you can help make a difference in the lives of families in our neighborhood. 

Through June 30, all donations up to $10,000 will be doubled, thanks to anti-hunger champions, Ted and Dawn Helwig for their match challenge. Every $1 = 16 meals. Make a difference with a gift, today.

The Friendship Center can provide a family with free fresh food and pantry items twice a month. There are no income requirements or address restrictions. We can also help families enroll in SNAP, Medicaid, and refer them to other local agencies for additional vital resources. 

Additionally, we need more friends to volunteer and help us serve the growing number of neighbors visiting the pantry every week. There are volunteer shifts every day of the week at various times. Sign in to the volunteer portal and select a time that works for your schedule.

We are grateful to be a part of a caring and generous community who seeks to alleviate hunger and help their neighbors whenever they can.

Utilizing The Food Pantry Increases Buying Power for Neighbors

Neighbors shopping at the best free grocery store in town – The Friendship Center, are walking away with an average of $160 worth of groceries. This spring, one of our student volunteers, Cora W. price compared what our neighborhood grocery stores would charge for the food that neighbors select for free during their pantry visit.

As a student, Cora is not worried about paying for housing or food but she’s learning through her classes and volunteering at TFC, that affording life’s basic necessities is costly. Cora shared, “we did a budgeting activity last year in school. It was really helpful to see all the pieces we have to put together to live. The price comparison project showed me this as well. And if we can make the puzzle a little easier for someone, I want to be part of that.”

As Cora was doing her research at local grocery stores she noted, “how hard it can be to find food in a grocery store, especially if you don’t know the layout well. A well-organized list helps.”

In addition to navigating prices and layouts of grocery stores, all of us have felt our dollars getting us less and less food when we go to check out. Our neighbors facing hunger are no exception, Cora also noticed, “while doing the price comparison project and seeing just how much food costs right in front of me, it was hard to imagine spending this much money on what I eat every week.” Your investment at The Friendship Center through donating, volunteering, and raising awareness helps alleviate neighbors from their tight budgets and allows them to redirect the $160 – $320 they are saving to other costs like utility bills, medicine, childcare, and beyond.

The Friendship Center has continued to serve more neighbors in 2024 than ever before, with a 35% increase compared to last year. To continue to provide access to fresh food and vital resources we rely on volunteers and donations to meet the needs of our neighbors.

Lincoln Square Animal Hospital Shares Pet Food and Supplies Donations

Lincoln Square Animal Hospital often receives pet food and supplies from their clients and distributes those donations to other organizations and individuals in the community. They became an ongoing partner with the Friendship Pet Food Pantry (FP2) in November 2023.

Practice Manager, Sylvia has been critical at coordinating ongoing food and supply donations to our pet food pantry. Sylvia shares that LS Animal Hospital partners with the Friendship Pet Food Pantry because, “we want people who need the donations to receive them and we align with FP2’s mission of keeping Chicago families and their pets together.”

Lincoln Square Animal Hospital is located at 4501 North Lincoln Avenue Chicago, IL 60625 at the intersection of Sunnyside and Lincoln in the Lincoln Square neighborhood. They serve around 800 pets every month.

Sylvia shares, “we want our clients and patients to feel at home and welcome. As pet parents ourselves, we know precisely how important yours is to you. We take pride in our client service and we design treatment protocols that are tailored to your pet’s specific needs. Our staff takes pride in helping our fur patients.”

Thank you Lincoln Square Animal Hospital for your ongoing commitment to our community and helping Chicago families and their pets stay together.

Providing Better Support with our Partners

The most humane and effective way to get the outdoor cat population to a manageable level is through Trap- Neuter- Return (TNR) services. The Friendship Center Pet Food Pantry compliments the Tree House Humane Society’s TNR program in many ways.

Cats congregate in areas where there are resources, and many caretakers end up caring for more cats than they can support. While many colony caretakers have a hard time affording the full scope of needed care, out of deep compassion, they continue to dedicate their funds and time to help the cats they encounter. Tree House does what it can to stabilize the colony’s numbers through its no-cost, on-the-ground TNR program.

Due to the speed at which a colony of cats reproduces, the numbers can get out of hand. It is not uncommon for people to start seeing a few cats first, and then for that number to skyrocket. Sometimes, the number of actual cats in a colony is much greater than what the caretaker even realizes. There are many times where we are called onto a site with 10 cats or more! After we treat a colony to stop the chaos of quickly reproducing cats and the focus turns to the colony’s immediate care, these amazing people are often faced with a scary reality: loving the cats like their own but not having enough resources to feed them adequately.

When I volunteer at the Pet Food Pantry, I see many of those same clients I’ve worked with receiving the help The Friendship Center provides. It warms my heart to see people who I know pour their heart into the care of the cats, have a resource to turn to in difficult times. Because of programs like The Friendship Center’s Pet Food Pantry, caretakers have a place to get support and some financial relief. 

Tree House Humane Society partners with The Friendship Center by sharing pet supplies such as food, collars, beds, litter, and other essential items. With the amazing space and program at The Friendship Center, together we can assist many more pet-friendly community members than if each acted alone.  

-Olivia Radziszewski

About the author:

Olivia leads the TNR efforts at Tree House Humane Society. She has always been interested in helping and supporting animals. As well as has been a foster in many organizations in the Chicagoland area. Having worked in human services as well, she is grateful for the opportunity to bring two together by participating in programs like The Friendship Center Pet Food Pantry. 

One Volunteer’s Experience at The Friendship Center

What is three hours? That is how much time I spend building food boxes for senior and home-bound clients at The Friendship Center (TFC) every Saturday. It is humbling and heartwarming to see the program’s transformation. What started as one packer working with three drivers to deliver groceries for roughly 30 clients monthly has blossomed into three volunteer packers building boxes for a dozen drivers who hand-deliver groceries to more than 75 clients monthly.

When the pandemic started, I was working at a local Alderman’s office, where we launched a weekly Call Crew to check on seniors and connect them to resources. These calls quickly exposed vulnerable seniors in the ward who were rationing their food because they did not have access to safe forms of transportation or the financial means to restock via grocery delivery apps. Coming from a nonprofit background where you solve problems on a zero budget, I knew I had to tap into my network. TFC delivered – seeing the program go from me emailing Ross Outten every Friday a laundry list of names of those in need and him serving as both packer and delivery driver to coming on as the program’s first volunteer was a tremendous honor.

I hypothesize that many of you reading this feel similarly about the time and treasures you give to TFC. There is a dedicated group that secures and distributes pet food every third Saturday, which allows us to include it for Home Delivery clients with four-legged companions. Others reading this help TFC by hosting food drives that enable us to build boxes catered to each person’s specific dietary preferences and needs, including microwave meals and easy-to-open cans. To everyone who supports TFC in one form or another, know that your unique impact causes a positive ripple.

-Jesi Peters

About the author:

Jesi Peters was The Friendship Center’s first Home Delivery volunteer and packs boxes for clients every Saturday. Jesi lives in Chicago with her beloved cat, Tommy, and is the new Director of Development for Tree House Humane Society, one of our Pet Food Pantry partners.

How The Friendship Pet Food Pantry Started

The goal is that no pets are abandoned or surrendered to shelters because they can’t be fed.

About ten years ago, several small north-side pantries were closing for various reasons. The 47th Ward Clergy Council formed an exploratory committee to determine if that activity left the community’s food insecure population without sufficient resources. I was on that committee, and as part of that process we visited a pantry, Care for Real, that was feeding hundreds of people each week. But that organization also offered a monthly pet food pantry, and I was inspired by what I saw! It was run by a lone, determined volunteer: Bark Bark Club owner Patti Colendera.

Later that year, the North Park Friendship Center was preparing to open a second location in Lincoln Square. Together with Betzi Poole, Heidi Bush approached their Board and pitched an all-volunteer group offering a monthly pet food pantry at the facility. The thinking was no one should choose who in a family goes hungry, pets included.

One year later, in 2013, The Friendship Pet Food Pantry became a reality. We secured donated storage space to hold extra inventory at Stay, a neighborhood pet hotel, and were soon awarded a grant from Banfield of 25,000 pounds of pet food. We opened our doors that month and haven’t missed a month since!

To receive pet food and supplies, only Chicago residency and proof of pet spay/neuter status are required. If needed, we offer referrals for those surgeries & have an arrangement with PAWS for a reduced rate, as well. When we have surplus pet food we can’t distribute for whatever reason, we share our bounty with other organizations – who often reciprocate. We continue to be blessed by dedicated, generous pet lovers who volunteer their time, donate food, supplies, and help raise money (especially for the always requested cat litter!) and can’t thank them enough.

It’s humbling to see what we started a decade ago has grown into something that served over 800 pets last year. Pets are beloved members of a family – I can’t wait to see where it goes from here!

-Dara Salk

About the author: Dara Salk is one of the founding volunteers of the Friendship Center Pet Food Pantry. Since launching it in 2013, she has been a driving force behind its growth, creating relationships and finding pet food to distribute across Chicago and its suburbs. A longtime community activist, Dara has also helped found Forward Chicago, been a member of Riverbank Neighbors, 47th Ward Council, Green Council, and Senior Council, and served as the community outreach director for 47th Ward Alderman Ameya Pawar.