Helping the hungry a priority in Naperville

Feeding the hungry proved to be the priority for Naperville councilmen Monday as they doled out grants to area charities.

Councilmen allocated about $500,000 in Community Development Block Grants and $275,000 in Social Services Grants.

Loaves & Fishes Community Pantry received the most funding with about $260,000. The bulk of the money will help build a new facility to provide food to the poor. Loaves & Fishes purchased land in northwest Naperville in April and hopes to break ground in 2009.

Councilmen said the organization predominantly serves Naperville residents, and building a facility of its own instead of renting will give it more money for food in the long run.

"We've got to find a way to get this organization at a funding level where they can break the cycle, get into a facility that allows them to be cost effective and then allows us to ramp up, through this organization, the amount of citizens we can touch with this community ... program," Councilman James Boyajian said.

While the group received a significant portion of the available grant money, its total grants are actually $115,000 less than it asked for.

"The numbers requested, we had very specific reasons for those requests," said Executive Director Charles McLimans. "While they weren't fully funded, certainly this will go a long way to helping us in our capital campaign and to meeting the daily need of putting food on people's table."

The city received $1.7 million in requests for block grants, and about $632,000 for Social Services Grants this year, up from about $1.1 million and $624,000 respectively last year. The block grants come from federal funds while Social Services Grants come out of the city's general fund.

The city typically hands out only $250,000 in Social Services Grants, but this year decided to use the fund's 10 percent contingency as well.

Monday's allocations will be finalized at a future city council meeting and come out of the fiscal year 2010 budget.

In addition to Loaves & Fishes, other large grants included $60,000 for Trinity Services to provide housing to mentally disabled adults, just over $57,000 for Naperville CARES' emergency assistance program and rental deposit, and about $44,000 for Naperville Elderly Homes to replace elevators.

Councilmen also approved $42,500 for Illinois Independent Living for roof repairs, $41,100 to Little Friends for rehabilitation of homes for adults with disabilities and $35,000 to KidsMatter for its youth programs.