Dan Piper walked in bearing five grocery bags of food for the Illinois Valley Food Pantry during its open house Thursday.
Piper’s fellow church members had taken up a food drive, he said.
“Hopefully it’s going to be a good thing,” he said.
The pantry has a new office at 122 Wright St., La Salle. After 14 years on Marquette Street, the pantry moved two blocks west last winter to the new site for more space. Board members said it gives more space for food and for clients, who don’t have to form long queues outside to pick up food.
“We got it pretty well set up,” said board member Rose Marie Lynch of Peru. “When we did the Easter distribution here, we were drawing up a map. Now the hams go where?”
The pantry held a campaign to raise $40,000 this year. It met the goal in June and will buy refrigerators and freezers and offset expenses of moving to the new location. Clients often become volunteers.
“We’ve had people who have been clients for many years and when things got better for them they started volunteering,” Lynch said.
The pantry’s clients originally were low-income workers and unemployed seniors, said Sue Myers of Peru, who has been a board member for all of the pantry’s 36 years.
Today, Myers said, the pantry has three main categories of clients: the underemployed who are working low-wage jobs; fixed-income seniors; and fixed-income people with disabilities.
“That’s a big change,” Myers said.
When Piper walked in with bags of donations, board member Jim Greening was among those who took notice.
“That’s one thing that hasn’t changed, is that people in this community are very generous,” Greening said.
Illinois Valley Food Pantry helps an average of 750 families each month in La Salle County. The pantry is open 9 a.m. to noon Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday. You can call the pantry at (815) 224-3658 or find out more at www.ivfoodpantry.com.
Jeff Dankert can be reached at (815) 220-6977 or lasallereporter@newstrib.com. Follow him on Twitter @NT_LaSalle.
