Romeoville: Community Food Pantry Opens At Local Grade School

ROMEOVILLE, IL - Cans of corn and bags of rice line the shelves. Children dash about excitedly, looking for treats as their place more sensible options like eggs and cereal into the cart. Women, some with name tags on, direct people to specific items. Familiar shopping scenes, but this isn't a grocery store. This is the new community food pantry at Irene King Elementary School at 301 Eaton Avenue in Romeoville, and it is booming.

The pantry had its Grand Opening last Thursday, Nov. 21, after almost a year of preparation. It operates under the management of the West Suburban Community Pantry, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit company based out of Woodridge. As its name suggests, the company operates a number of mobile food pantries and financial assistance programs throughout the western suburbs. Irene King is the first in-school pantry they've helped start. According to Irene King Principal April Vacik, the new pantry is primarily intended to benefit families with children at the school. That said, Vacik added that hungry members of the surrounding community were also welcome.

"It's for Irene King families, but we will never turn anyone away," she said.

The pantry is normally open every Thursday from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., Vacik said. People would be welcome to come at off-hours, she added, so long as they called ahead and planned a visit when school staff could receive them. The pantry was also open and busy on Tuesday Nov. 26, when Patch visited for the sake of this story, due to the school's Thanksgiving holiday beginning Wednesday. One Irene King mother, Irene Alvarado, said it was one of the better-stocked food pantries she had visited. Besides stocked dry goods, it also has some large fridges to store fruit, eggs and other perishable items.

"I... see a lot of products than I don't usually see at food pantries," Alvarado said. "Milk, eggs, produce."

The impressive selection, Vacik said, could be attributed to the Northern Illinois Food Bank, the pantry's main benefactor, as well as to generous food and monetary donations from two wealthy anonymous donors and other members of the community. Alvarado provided one of those donations; besides taking food for her family, she also gave the pantry canned items that her children didn't have a taste for.

"It's beef broth," she said. "My kids are more into chicken."

Despite its wide selection and many patrons, the pantry has no full time or professional staff. All organization, assistance and processing is done by Irene King teachers and a handful of local volunteers.

Some of those volunteers on Tuesday were busy stacking eggs and grapes into a display for the five or six different families browsing the shelves. Other teachers and volunteers collected carts, unboxed items that needed replacing, and directed traffic. Despite the abundance of food, space was a precious commodity in the crowded space. In the short time the pantry has been open, word about it has clearly spread.

Vacik attributes the pantry's popularity to the fact that the surrounding area doesn't have many grocery stores.

"It's kind of a food desert," she said. "There aren't a lot of grocery stores here."

The data agrees with her. Parts of Romeoville are considered "food deserts" - regions without easy access to healthy groceries - by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In a 2015 study, the USDA found there were neighborhoods in the village where the closest commercial grocers were more than 20 miles away.

Alvarado, though, said the proximity of shopping places did not worry her. For her, the pantry was most useful as a way to keep costs down while feeding her large family.

"For me, there's a grocery store within walking distance... plus I shop at Dollar Store, Walgreen's, Walmart," she said. "It's more of a cost thing for our family. Spending on groceries adds up very quickly in a household of six."

Regardless of the specifics, the pantry is no doubt already proving a boon to members of the Irene King (and surrounding) community - and just in time for Thanksgiving. Something to consider for anyone who feels the spirit of giving this holiday season.

"We'll always welcome more volunteers," Vacik said.