Kane County's first in-school food pantry to open

Underprivileged families within Community Unit District 300 needing food assistance can benefit from an in-school food pantry opening Wednesday at Carpentersville Middle School.

It's the first school-based food pantry in Kane County. It will be open once a week, independently managed and serve roughly 100 families, or 500 people, weekly, said Lake in the Hills resident Craig Raddatz, the pantry president who lead the effort.

Workers converted a shipping dock behind the school this summer into a 900-square-foot space dubbed the D300 Food Pantry, which is a registered nonprofit.

The facility has heating and air conditioning to meet health department standards and a handicap-accessible bathroom.

"It is self-contained to meet security requirements for the students to keep it separate (from the school)," Raddatz said.

The $50,000 cost of building and equipping the pantry was funded partly through a competitive $35,000 grant from the Morgan Stanley Foundation as part of its multiyear commitment to Feeding America. The grant was administered through Geneva-based Northern Illinois Food Bank and paid for the freezers, coolers, forklift, shelving and other equipment, Raddatz said.

Donors include the food bank, which provided an additional $8,000 grant for purchasing food to stock the pantry, the Rotary Club of Fox Valley Sunset, which provided roughly $10,000 and volunteer help, and The Chapel in Barrington, which gave $6,000 toward the project.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony is set for 4:45 p.m. Wednesday with doors opening at 5 p.m. Representatives of donor groups and Carpentersville Village President Ed Ritter will be present.

Growing need

Raddatz served as a team leader for The Chapel's mobile food pantry program at three Carpentersville schools where volunteers would set up a food truck from the NIFB, supplying up to 275 families during the school year. When demand grew, Raddatz decided to partner with District 300 and the food bank to house an on-site pantry at Carpentersville Middle School, where food will be available year-round to all district families.

"It's a relatively new concept of putting a food pantry into a school district to get closer to the families who are in need of food subsidy and to help the students that need food to nourish their brains," Raddatz said.

A team of Rotary Club volunteers helped stock the pantry last week. When open, it will have three coolers of milk, three freezers with a mix of frozen meats, canned vegetables, fruits, chili, ravioli, spaghetti sauce, breakfast cereals, spaghetti, rice and beans. There will be a fresh bread and produce section supplied by local food stores.

The pantry also will provide some products not reimbursable by the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, and personal items.

Raddatz plans to partner with Centro de Información in Elgin to offer on-site services such as help with résumé building, job search, and legal advice, and might offer free health services such as flu shots.

"I'm trying to work with other organizations who can come in and provide some social services to the families that aren't being provided in the school system anywhere now," Raddatz said. "We are looking for volunteers. And if any business or individual would like to contribute ... we are now a 501(c)3 food pantry so all donations directly to us can be tax-exempt."

Learning opportunity

Though much of the food initially will be purchased from the NIFB, Raddatz plans to organize student-run food drives for canned and dry goods to restock the pantry when needed.

Raddatz has formed a student advisory board to help develop a plan for the future.

"The vision is that if we are already in the school system, why can't we take advantage of running a food pantry, a mini business, and allow the students not only to support it but to learn from it," he said.

High school students could learn leadership skills through their involvement with the pantry advisory board.

Raddatz hopes to get art students to paint the bare walls and make it a homier environment for visiting families, and create a school project where students develop a website for the pantry with educational materials, nutritional information and recipes.

"Students can learn inventory management, accounting, fundraising ... it's a live incubator where they could learn all of this on a smaller scale," he said.