Covenant Church, food pantry team up for collection

The Covenant Church of Schaumburg's recent neighborhood food drive collected more than 375 grocery bags of food and household items for the Schaumburg Township food pantry.

It was such a success, the township thanked the church by posting a message on their marquee in front of the township building.

More than 30 volunteers from the Covenant Church of Schaumburg canvassed Schaumburg neighborhoods in recent weekends, dropping off empty grocery bags the first week and then returning the following Saturday to pick up the bags filled by Schaumburg residents.

The food pantry supports 600 to 700 families each month. The pantry assists families in times of hardship, including loss of employment, inability to find another job, exhaustion of unemployment compensation, breakup of families and the high cost of rent, utility bills and medical bills.

It serves families and individuals from the township, which includes parts of Schaumburg, Streamwood, Hoffman Estates, Hanover Park, Rolling Meadows, Roselle and Elk Grove Village.

Supervisor of Program Support Services for Schaumburg Township Amy Fillmore finds summer months are challenging for food pantries.

"During the summer months, families rely on the food pantry more because their children are out of school for the summer and they eat all meals at home rather than at school," Fillmore said.

"To make the situation more challenging, we have fewer donations in the summer months."

Trader Joe's grocery store donated 1,500 paper bags for the drive. The church placed a note on each of the bags that instructed residents what items were needed by the pantry and how the Covenant Church of Schaumburg would be back in one week to pick up their donation.

The food drive was a success; 375 grocery bags of food and household items were donated by Schaumburg residents and church parishioners.

"Over the four years we have held this food drive, we've been able to collect more than 1,300 bags of groceries for the food pantry," said Steve Larson, leader and organizer of food donation efforts for the church. "We're grateful for the support we receive from our neighbors with this effort."

The church also provides to the food pantry outside of the food drive.

"In addition, our One Ton Garden provides close to 2,000 pounds of fresh produce each year that we donate to the food pantry. Since we've started this, we have donated more than 16,000 pounds of fresh produce from our garden efforts."

"They definitely have been a valuable partner to the Schaumburg community with their food drives and gardening efforts" said Fillmore. "It's a great partnership, and we look forward to helping more households together."

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