The Greater Chicago Food Depository is a non-profit agency that accepts food donations from companies and governmental agencies and distributes it to member agencies. These agencies run food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters and serve over 675,000 a year. Last year they distributed over 67 millions pounds of food in the Cook County area. Their motto is, “Providing food for hungry people while striving to end hunger in our community”.
Today, I was among 52 other volunteers for the Wednesday afternoon “repack”. This repack is a process where bulk dry goods are broken down into family sized packaging and labeled for distribution. We worked in the clean room where we had to wear hair nets, face masks, aprons and gloves to work with pasta from containers that held over 500 lb. Through an assembly line process we hand packed plastic bags with either 2 lbs of Rigatoni or 1 1/2 lbs of Rotini. These bags were, sealed, labeled, and packed into boxes that were piled onto pallets and then hauled away to the warehouse.
Having worked in a food pantry and a couple of soup kitchens it was interesting to see this process and I appreciate the effort it takes to get the food to the people who need it. The GCFD allowed me to designate the Union Avenue Food Pantry to receive credit for my time that they can use towards food for their pantry.
That’s number 29 down, and now only 21 to go!