Fund helping to feed county during COVID-19 restrictions
DECATUR, Ill. (AP) - Northeast Community Fund staff have been adapting in a time of uncertainty.
The organization has seen demand skyrocket during the coronavirus outbreak, which has resulted in job losses and furloughs as businesses have shut down. While the $2.2 trillion rescue packaged signed by President Donald Trump will provide relief, the payments are still weeks away. Anyone earning up to $75,000 in adjusted gross income and who has a Social Security number will receive a $1,200 payment. Parents will also receive $500 for each qualifying child.
In the meantime, social service agencies are continuing to fill the gap even as they deal with a limited number of helpers.
At Northeast, volunteers and staff 60 years and older back on March 15 were asked to stay home and not come into work, "which is more than half of our staff," said Executive Director Ed Bacon. The precaution came because of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that seek to limit the number of people in a building at once. As a result, the food pantry turned into a drive-through.
The food pantry qualifies as an 'œessential service'ť that can operate during the Illinois stay-at-home order Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced on March 20.
The agency also provides family investment and micro-finance programs. Until the stay-at-home order is lifted, its clothing room will not be open and financial services will be done remotely via phone call.
Clients who visit the pantry drive-through are asked to keep two weeks between each visit and have an ID verification.
In the drive-through, volunteers hand out pre-filled boxes to clients instead of them picking out food. Boxes Monday morning had frozen pizza, cereal, fresh produce, juices, pasta and toilet paper, among other items. Clients are asked to stay in their vehicles.
"It's pretty much the same basic essentials in each one," Bacon said. "It's what we have in stock. You might have a rye bread instead of a white bread, or cookies instead of pies."
The boxes come together on an assembly line inside a 17,000-square-foot facility the organization moved into in October. To keep up with demand, boxes are packaged and shuffled across the food line, then handed out of the facility's south side doors.
"It's fast and easy to pull up and just grab it," said Joseph Horath on Monday morning while receiving a box through the drive-through. The 49-year-old is a regular client.
"There are some items that have been hard to find in the stores," he said. "It's been a great big help."
Demand has increased significantly. Northeast announced a policy change Sunday that now allows families to visit the pantry two times every 30 days, instead of one. A result of the virus has been a significant increase in first-time clients, Bacon said.
The most amount of families served in one day by the agency is 448, Bacon said.
"We actually broke our record this year," he said. "Within 50 years, we had about 205 families. The first day we opened the drive-through, we broke that record. The second day we doubled it, at least."
Food Director Karol Schaefer keeps regular contact with Kroger, Aldi and Walmart for food orders. Since she's 66 years old, she was one of the staff members asked to work remotely.
"It's really been difficult to get milk, eggs and bread," she said. "Everything in this situation has changed as far as delivery from grocery stores because they're not getting product. We've been put on hold so I've been trying to purchase what I can when I can."
Schaefer said Kroger lifted an order restriction that prevented the ordering of certain items, especially those that are hard to find at area stores.
The Central Illinois Food Bank also limited orders of popular items to five cases every two months. The agency would typically order up to 30 cases of canned goods and a pallet, 72 cases, of macaroni and cheese, Schaefer said as an example.
About 8,000 to 12,000 pounds of food is donated by Feeding America each week, which is one of the pantry's consistent source of donations. The United Way also assisted by purchasing four pallets of milk with funding from the $100,000 donated by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation donation to help stock food pantries. The pantry isn't accepting personal donations to limit social contact, something that has caused a decreased in total amount of food they receive.
"We're trying to encourage the stay-at-home order and asking people to come here and donate food would defeat that,'ť Bacon said.
"We can purchase food from the Central Illinois Food Bank for 19 cents a pound, so their money goes a lot further if they just make a monetary donation," Bacon said.
'œI should offer a shout-out to the WSOY Food Drive," he said, referring to the annual collection each fall. "We were given $75,000 that came as a credit at the Central Illinois Food Bank. It has really been nice to have that credit, you know, to draw from in times like this.'ť