Secret Pantry food drive Friday at The Looney Bin - Kankakee Daily Journal

Secret Pantry food drive Friday at The Looney Bin - Kankakee Daily Journal

BRADLEY — Have you ever attended a food drive and you were only given a few dented cans and smashed boxes of food to pick from?

By attending a Secret Pantry food drive and donating $10, you can choose from a variety of food and walk away with at least enough food for 30 days.

This Friday at The Looney Bin, 201 S. Schuyler Ave., Bradley, Secret Pantry from Braidwood will be hosting a food drive from 4 to 5 p.m.

Why is it called Secret Pantry?

"We never know what we'll be getting when we pick up the food," said MaryLu Krueger, the operator of Secret Pantry.

Krueger created Secret Pantry about two years after she, her husband and son had fallen on hard times.

"We needed food," recalled Krueger. They turned to Hands of Hope of Illinois, a nonprofit ministry in Joliet that works to provide food and supplies for the less fortunate, who told Krueger to arrive in a pickup truck and take all the food she and her family needed.

After that, Krueger figured there were others who were in need just like she and her family so along with a handful of volunteers she started Secret Pantry.

"It's strictly donation based, and we use our own vehicles to go get the food," Krueger said.

If you'd like to volunteer for Secret Pantry, contact Krueger on Facebook and send her a message, or search for the Secret Pantry page on Facebook, and make a post saying you'd like to volunteer.

"It's for the needy, not greedy," Krueger said.

She said if you attend the food drive and find yourself with more than enough food, pay it forward.

"You've got to know someone that doesn't have enough food, or someone who has to pay something, rather than buy food."

Every first and third Friday of the month, Secret Pantry volunteers go to The Joliet Hope Center and collect what food they can, and meet at the Top Fuel Saloon in Braidwood for their food drive. For the drive this Friday, they ran short on volunteers, so they contacted Nick Huffman, the owner of The Looney Bin.

On short notice, he set up an event page on Facebook (search: Secret Pantry Food Drive at The Bin) and gave instructions on what people need to do in order to attend.

"They can find the event page on Facebook, or my Facebook page, and post that you'll be attending. You can also like the Secret Pantry page on Facebook," Huffman said.

That's all the RSVP someone will need to attend, and when you arrive, you'll just have to donate $10 and fill out a brief registration form.

"Sometimes, we'll get a heavy meat day, or pasta and bread. Sometimes, it's a mixture of all three," Krueger said.

"We might get cases of canned and packaged vegetables, crates of fresh green beans, soup or giant jars of mayonnaise. We might not know what we're gonna get, but we can promise that you'll walk away with a lot."