Online shopping at the food pantry? Woodridge facility renovations will allow for it
Online shopping is the grocery convenience on which many customers have come to rely, and now it's coming to a food pantry in Woodridge.
In the world of food banks, online shopping is a new thing, and West Suburban Community Pantry aims to be the first in DuPage County to offer it.
The pantry is in the midst of a fundraising campaign to support $600,000 worth of renovations to its client service and warehouse space at 6809 Hobson Valley Drive, Suite 118. From there, the organization supports people in parts of Lisle and Naperville as well as Bolingbrook, Darien, Downers Grove, Romeoville, Westmont, Willowbrook and Woodridge with full grocery orders twice a month and staples such as produce, bread, milk and eggs every week.
Laura Coyle, executive director, said the renovations will provide a new back door for online order pickup as well as a better layout for the inventory control online shopping requires. The work also will expand the waiting area, add private intake rooms, move staff offices to a separate facility nearby and create a door between the storage area and pantry shopping space for faster restocking.
"We're hoping to have more capacity for just about everything we do," Coyle said.
The pantry, in fact, hopes to double the number of people it serves by 2030 to reach 14,800 a year through its "Access 2020: Building Capacity, Breaking Down Barriers" campaign.
The campaign has raised $450,000 toward renovation costs so far, Coyle said, and the pantry aims to bring in the remaining $150,000 - or more - by the time work is scheduled to start in June. To donate, visit https://wscpantry.org/access2020/.
"Our goal is to break down barriers for people who wouldn't necessarily come to a food pantry on their own," Coyle said. "We know there's a percentage of the population in need who won't come forward."
Whether their reasons for staying away are emotional - pride, fear - or practical - time, transportation, child care - the pantry wants to reach people who need more food but aren't receiving it.
The new online shopping service is one way the pantry hopes to break down the pride barrier so clients won't have to walk the warehouse floor with a volunteer and admit, in person, they're in need.
"We're trying to make it as convenient for people as regular grocery shopping is now," Coyle said.
Since last year, the organization has been testing the service with residents of transitional housing provided by the Glen Ellyn-based nonprofit Bridge Communities, which helps people reach self-sufficiency after homelessness.
The pilot program was part of an initiative led by Feeding American in which West Suburban Community Pantry and two others across the nation were chosen to study the barriers to food sufficiency.
Coyle said participants have been able to use a website to choose the foods they need, then pick them up at a set time at Bridge Communities apartment complexes.
Online shopping is set to be available to the public in need by the end of the month, Coyle said, with pickup at the pantry headquarters or at designated neighborhood sites.
Aside from the new online option, the organization recently launched its first in-school pantry at Irene King Elementary in Romeoville. It also operates mobile pantries that deliver to Bolingbrook, Romeoville and Willowbrook and makes deliveries to seniors.