St. Matthew's Wins Food Collecting Contest

As cans are given to food pantry, St. Matthew's board president says it's the community that really wins.

It's tough to beat the Niles Fire Department in Golf Mill Shopping Center's Festival of Trees competition. And if anybody can, it would likely be the Niles Police Department. But St. Matthew's Evangelican Lutheran Church's strategy of asking people to bring in the boxes, bags and cans apparently worked. The church collected 946 food items for the Niles Township Food Pantry, and won first place in the friendly competition among the Niles institutions that put up holiday trees at Golf Mill's Festival of Trees this month. Mall-goers were asked to vote for their favorite tree by bringing in a non-perishable donation for the food pantry. Each item counted as one vote. Earlier: Festival of Trees opens, Santa arrives "This is wonderful," said …

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Seven Places To Volunteer This Holiday

Want to share the holiday spirit with someone who could use help?

  1. Donate a coat or volunteer time to organize donated coats at St. Juliana's Coat Drive. St. Juliana's is the home parish of many Niles residents. When: Accepting donated coats and jackets Saturday, December 10th & Sunday, December 11th; asking for volunteers to sort the donations on Monday, Dec. 12 at 7:30 p.m. What: Please bring any coats or jackets you want to donate to the vestibule of the Church during the weekend Masses. The coats we collect will be given to “People Sharing”, a group of Chicago-based residents committed to supporting the needs of under-served communities. The coats will be distributed to one or more of the following centers: Marillac House, St. Leonard’s, Grace House, Pacific Garden Mission, Deborah’s Place and St…

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Food Pantry Expects to Serve Record Number in November

Increased need during the holidays means many anxious residents, director says.

The Niles Township Food Pantry is bracing for what it expects will be a record number of people in need coming through its doors this month. “It will be off the charts,” Director Cynthia Carranza said of what she anticipates seeing between now and the end of the year as struggling residents stock up on food for everyday meals as well as for the holidays. "I can't even imagine what it will be." As the pantry readied itself to bag Thanksgiving food with the help of volunteers last week, Carranza talked about the unprecedented need she’s seeing in the community. As she spoke, her phone rang non-stop with people asking what would be available for Thanksgiving and needing reassurance that their Thanksgiving food wouldn’t count against their …

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Pat Craig

3:10 pm on Thursday, November 24, 2011

There is no question that in these tough economic times there is a real need for families in distress to look for help. Those of us who do not face this type of distress surely have reason to feel thankful and should realize that not everybody in need is looking to suck up "freebies". I do, however, question why a subdivision of government, (a sub-division that is much like the appendix... an …   more ›

Demand Rises, Donations Decline at Maine Township Food Pantry

Size, not quantity, of donations smaller.

Evidence the economy is improving since economists reported the end of the recession in 2009 is not to be found at Maine Township Food Pantry in Park Ridge. Two years later demand is up at the pantry, 1700 Ballard Road. And need is expected to increase dramatically as the weather gets colder in November, which has been the case in past years. Carol Teschky, supervisor at the pantry, said the situation indicates the recession is not over. “It indicates the economy is still very, very fragile out here,” Teschky said. “I don’t see any recovery as we read about in the national media.” In Sept. 2010, the pantry, supported almost totally within the township, distributed 228 food boxes. The count for Sept. 2011 is 248 boxes. The average per month…

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Township Food Pantry Seeing More Middle Class Families

The pantry director said class lines are now gone among users as a constant demand for grocery staples increase.

Residents that have been classically defined as solidly suburban middle class are the biggest group of new users at the Niles Township Food Pantry. The long-term unemployed or those forced to take lower-wage positions after being cast out of well-paying jobs, or have lost homes to foreclosure, have dramatically swelled the ranks of pantry patrons with the  peak demand for food necessities still ahead December. “We’re seeing anywhere from 40 to 50 new families per month, easily, using the pantry,” said manager Cynthia Carranza, who works in an annex building behind Niles Township’s administration building at 5225 W. Main St. in Skokie. As a comparison, the Northfield Township Food Pantry increased from 630 families in August to 652 in …

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Photo Gallery: Harvest Time at the Library Garden

Extra produce goes to the Niles Township Food Pantry

The Morton Grove Library's community garden is overflowing with produce. At least once a week, volunteers gather to pick what's ripe and, with the help of library staff, turn it into a tasty dish. Whatever isnt' used that day is donated to the Niles Township Food Pantry. Related: Food pantry garden helps meet growing demand

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PROLibraryMG

2:09 pm on Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Thank you, Emily and Patch, for the lovely photos of the MGPL's Community Garden. For more photos, from planting day to the weekly garden checks, please visit the PROLibrary facebook photo album: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.221169827918501.47735.169281509774000&type=1   more ›

Food Pantry Garden to Help Meet Growing Demand

Community garden should start producing next year.

Niles Township is moving forward with its community garden, and it can’t start producing vegetables for the township food pantry fast enough. Township trustees and other officials posed for pictures in front of the garden at their board meeting Monday night. Volunteer Bill Zimmer, who is married to Trustee Maggie Zimmer, spearheaded the effort to create the garden and continues to be a steadfast volunteer at the food pantry. He told the board that they need another couple of loads of dirt for the garden, and perhaps a toolshed for volunteers to store their equipment before the garden can be planted next spring. Earlier: Profile of the food pantry director Trustee Marc Collins said he is working with Bill Zimmer to come up with procedures …

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Community Voices

Niles Township Food Pantry Director Quoted in Rep. Schakowsky's Opinion Piece

The opinion article discusses the legacy of the Bush tax cuts.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-9th) submitted an article to the Chicago Tribune earlier this week on the 10th anniversary of the Bush tax cuts. "Unfortunately, after a generation of tax cuts for high-income earners, millionaires are paying the lowest effective tax rates since before the 1920s," she writes. In her article, Schakowsky references the Niles Township Food Pantry, which serves Morton Grove, Niles and Skokie residents. Cynthia Carranza, the director of the food pantry, said, "We're an incredibly rich and prosperous nation. But our wealth is skewed to a very few fortunate at the top. We're not broken, just twisted," according to the article. Schakowsky advocates an increase in taxes for the most wealthy Americans. Read the full article …

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Local Students Open Restaurant to Serve the Hungry

Park View School's third grade class raised money for the local food pantry with a in-house restaurant.

For the past three years, third grade teacher Chris Kennelly has taught his students how to serve people, literally.  On Tuesday afternoon, a gaggle of eager kids took orders, served food and bussed tables for about 140 people at Park View School in Morton Grove. "In the past three years, we've raised $1,500," said Kennelly. All the proceeds go to Niles Township Food Pantry, where this year, the students took a tour beforehand to learn about civic engagement for their social studies class. For $6.95 a customer received a balsamic chicken sandwich, choice of pasta salad or fruit skewer, and lemonade, plus free cookies with every purchase. Burgers and turkey hot dogs were also on the menu.  Top chefs in the house This year's restaurant, …

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Patch Portrait

Patch Portrait: Dishing Up Community at the Niles Township Food Pantry

This week's Patch Portraits also features a taxi driver from Oak Park and a world traveler who returns home.

This week's Patch Portraits was produced and edited by Casey Cora, Phillip Downie and Natalie Kaplan. Check back on Mondays for the next installment. Also showcased, a North Shore world traveler and Oak Park's taxi driver. "This food pantry is about community, it's about everyone. It is not just about the people who come here that need food," states Cynthia Carranza, Director of the Niles Township Food Pantry. "People who are in the position to give, to help us out, believe me when I tell you it's just as important for them as it is for the person coming to get food." When Carranza left accounting five years ago to work at the food pantry, something her fiancé's mother who previously volunteered had recommended to her, she was starting to …

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