Englewood food pantry offers Thanksgiving meals to families in need

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A food giveaway Tuesday morning on Chicago's South Side offered those in need with supplies to celebrate the upcoming holiday.

Families came with carts and wagons to shop for their Thanksgiving meals.

The Greater Chicago Food Depository partnered with the Salvation Army in Englewood to make the one-day event possible.

The Englewood Red Shield Center planned to distribute holiday food to neighbors in need, from 9 a.m. to 1p.m.

Some guests said Thanksgiving would not be possible without the turkey giveaway.

Joyce Campbell-Smith has 38 grandkids and 11 great-grand kids. She shopped at the food pantry to help feed her family for Thanksgiving. While it won't feed all of them, she said it's a start.

"I'm retired actually," Campbell-Smith said. "I'm disabled and I can't work because of my health condition, so I don't have saved a lot of money or a lot of stamps, so this helps me to not be hungry. This is my lifeline."

Pantry guests picked up whole turkeys or chickens, pumpkin pies and stuffing at no cost.

"We typically serve about 80 to 130 families," Englewood Red Shield Center Food Pantry coordinator Dynna Edwards said. "Our numbers have increased over the last year, and so we've been able to serve more people, more families."

The Greater Chicago Food Depository said one in five households in the Chicago metro area have reported being food insecure during the last two weeks of September.

"There is a big misconception right now that people think that hunger went away with the pandemic. That simply is not true," Greater Chicago Food Depository communications director Man-Yee Lee said. "We are at levels right now the same as we were seeing at the beginning of the pandemic."

As a result of the heightened need, organizers here said many families are turning to food pantries for the first time.

Food pantry guest LeeAnn Fenner said she has six people to feed on Thanksgiving and the pantry means everything.

"It helps me a whole lot," Fenner said. "It helps me cause see you gotta look forward to Christmas, and New Year's. You know, everybody don't have it like that. Take what you can get and be happy."