Schaumburg A.M. Rotarians recently participated in a club service project that benefited the Schaumburg Township Food Pantry.
The project consisted of the club donating more than $800 worth of essential food items and packing that into fifty emergency food bags for the pantry to give to clients when there is a need, but the client does not have an appointment to shop in this self-select pantry.
The township is currently distributing 60-70 of these emergency bags monthly. These bags are intended to tide the client over for 1-2 days until they can schedule their food pantry visit.
Emergency food bags were packed with non-perishable items such as canned fruit, beans & vegetables, soup, peanut butter & jelly, cereal, oatmeal packets, pasta and pasta sauce, canned meat, macaroni & cheese, pasta, or rice meals.
Club member Bill Paton coordinated both our participation in the project with the food pantry in addition to purchasing the food for the bags from a local Aldi store.
After packing the food bags our next task was to divide large cases of toilet tissue into smaller quantities of three rolls per bag for easier distribution to pantry clients.
The need for resources to address food insecurity is greater than ever as evidenced by the fact that the Schaumburg Twp Food Pantry now serves over 1,300 households every month. Not that long ago they were providing food to approximately 650 households monthly.
