CW26 Invites River Forest To 'Fill A Bag, Fill A Bus' To End Hunger

Press release from CW26:

Dec. 6, 2022

CW26, along with MeTV FM, Jewel-Osco, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) and the Greater Chicago Food Depository (GCFD), are inviting viewers to “Fill A Bag, Fill A Bus” this weekend to help end hunger. Special guest and CW26 daytime talk show host, Steve Wilkos, will be onsite collecting donations and greeting fans from 3:00p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Friday, December 9 at the Jewel-Osco on Canal Street.

December 9th and 10th, CW26 will be onsite at two local Jewel-Osco locations, asking shoppers to fill a bus with food donations for Chicagoans facing hunger.

DATES, TIMES AND LOCATIONS FOR “FILL A BAG, FILL A BUS”:

Friday, December 9, 2022

Jewel-Osco

1340 S. Canal Street, Chicago

2p.m. – 7p.m.

Saturday, December 10, 2022

Jewel-Osco

7525 W. Lake Street, River Forest

9a.m. – 3p.m.

Hundreds of grocery bags will be distributed to Jewel-Osco patrons, who will be asked to fill them with much-needed non-perishable items. CW26 and partners will be in the parking lots to collect donations and load them into a CTA bus. At the end of each day, a bus filled with food will be delivered to the Greater Chicago Food Depository, who will ensure that the items get distributed to neighbors in need.

Brandon Pope and Jon Hansen of the CW26 news program “On the Block” will also be on hand Friday afternoon to meet with shoppers.

Those who can’t make it to the stores can still participate by making a monetary donation online by texting CW26 to 91999 or going to the CW26 website at cw26chicago.com to make a gift.

Since 2016, CW26 has partnered with the Food Depository, making ending hunger in Chicago a priority. In one day, during the last “Fill A Bag, Fill A Bus” event in 2019, the station and its viewers provided 37,354 meals for local families.

HUNGER STATISTICS FROM THE GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY:

• In fiscal year 2022, the Food Depository distributed the equivalent of 77.3 million meals through a network of food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters. That’s a 30% increase compared to pre-pandemic times (2019). More than 36% of the food distributed was fresh produce.

• In the Chicago metropolitan area, 1 in 4 households with children are food insecure.

• The Food Depository team and community partners submitted 5,645 SNAP and Medicaid applications on behalf of our neighbors.

• Each day the Food Depository distributes up to 500,000 pounds of food to its network of over 700 community partner sites.

• Food costs have increased for both consumers and the Food Depository. Over the last two years costs for food at home rose more than 17 times the rate of the previous five years, peaking at over 10 percent this past spring.

• Similarly, the Food Depository has been impacted by rising inflation and supply chain disruptions. In fiscal year 2022, it spent a total of $36.8 million on food purchasing to ensure partners shelves remained stocked. That was a 62% increase compared to what was spent in fiscal year 2021, and more than triple what was spent in fiscal year 2020.

CW26 can be found on WCIU, Channel 26.1, XFINITY 183|1026, RCN 6/606, WOW 10/207, Dish 26, Direct TV 26, Spectrum Charter 22/616 and U-Verse 10/1010.

MeTV FM is WRME-LD/Chicago, broadcasting over the air at 87.7FM and available online via the Audacy app.

This press release was produced by CW26. The views expressed here are the author's own.