Chicago police volunteer at Irving Park Community Food Pantry

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The Irving Park Community Food Pantry continues to see a dramatic need for food since the pandemic and they got help from the Chicago Police Department Wednesday morning.

The CPD members helped bag and serve families in need. The food pantry serves hundreds of families at a time, and since the shutdown has seen a big increase of residents needing more food.

Before the pandemic hit, the pantry was serving about 75 families a week. Now, they are helping 200 families a week.

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"We've been getting a lot of big deliveries during the week so we can have food available, and also many many donations on Paypal through our website," said food pantry volunteer Craig Shutt. "We've gotten thousands of dollars and it really helps us to meet the need as our numbers keep going up, especially as it gets warmer and more people are out of work and seeing that they will be out of work longer."

"There is a big need in the world," said CPD Detective Marco Acevedo. "We see people are starving and people are hungry. What does it do? It affects the kids and they can't do their schoolwork, they can't get their education."

The Irving Park Community Food Pantry has been serving this area for 36 years.

The food pantry has been short volunteers at the pantry since the pandemic, so the police department members being here has been a huge help to distribute food.