The holiday season brought some frenetic activity to Loaves and Fishes with major food drives from Edward Hospital, The Naperville Fire Department and Harvest Sunday organized by St. Elizabeth Seton and St. Margaret Mary parishes.
We track our food inventory by weight as it enters and leaves our facility. Imagine the logistics of thirty-six additional food drives in November alone, each rendering weights ranging from 300 to 3,000 pounds. Our 30 food partner locations contributed a record 273,000 pounds, more than 136 tons, of rescued fresh and shelf-stable food in November.
We purchased enough product from our valued partners at Cargill and Northern Illinois Food Bank to distribute Thanksgiving holiday meals to 1,666 neighbors in DuPage County. Each family took home a turkey and twenty-two additional food items, including pies, some of which were donated through Naperville Park District’s Pennies for Pies initiative.
We repeated our holiday meal offering in December through the efforts of many. Our community is truly civic-minded and generous.
Each day I am amazed at the spirit and heart of our volunteers; they retrieve rescued food from local stores, sort and organize food donations, stock shelves, lead volunteer groups and work directly with our neighbors in our market and CARES programs. Our volunteers and staff work seamlessly together employing resourcefulness and an impressive work ethic to achieve a common goal: providing the most dignified and stress-free experience possible for our neighbors. Each of our volunteers infuses Loaves & Fishes with their own brand of kindness, humor and compassion creating an atmosphere we treasure. Our neighbors’ gratitude, perseverance and resilience make it our privilege to serve.
Thank you for your help to provide food and nourishment for our neighbors during the holidays and year round so they can direct more of their resources on other necessities like rent, fuel and utilities.
