Aurora food pantry sets women-only giveaway Jan. 20

Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry will hold its third monthly Women's Empowerment Mobile Pantry, a distribution of free food and household items for women only, on Thursday, Jan. 20.

The women's pantry will run from 2 to 3 p.m. at Santori Aurora Public Library, 101 S. River St. in Aurora. IDs are not required.

In addition to food, diapers, formula, baby food and feminine hygiene products will be distributed. The pantry's December distribution at Two Rivers Head Start in Aurora served 72 families.

According to Rebecca Dunnigan, Interfaith community outreach and program director, women's pantries are scheduled for the third Thursday of months in 2022.

A grant from Aurora Women's Empowerment Foundation enabled Interfaith to add the women's-only pantry to its popular mobile pantries. Aurora Women's Empowerment, an Aurora-based nonprofit, was formed in 2018 after the Aurora YWCA closed after nearly 125 years.

"Our mission is to elevate and empower Aurora-area women and future women by making grants to tax-exempt nonprofits engaged in meaningful, measurable work that helps women over the hurdles of inequity and exclusion, propelling them forward with life-changing programs and services," said Amy Bauduin, AWE chair.

Dunnigan added that the pantry's first 2022 kids' pop-up mobile distribution will be held from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Feb. 5, at Georgetown Elementary School, 995 Long Grove Drive in Aurora.

Since January 2021, Interfaith mobile pantries have visited parking lots at churches, schools, libraries and senior and low-income residences. Mobile-pantry partners with Interfaith are Fox Valley Park District, Calvary Church of Naperville and Blessings in a Backpack of Chicago. Pantry staff and volunteers unload items from a truck loaned by Calvary Church.

For more information, call (630) 692-3061, email rdunnigan@aurorafoodpantry.org or visit aurorafoodpantry.org.