The Between Friends Food Pantry is Sugar Grove has moved to a new location at 143 Main St. in the village, a spot pantry officials say is more centrally located than its previous site.
Early last month, community officials and those representing the Between Friends Food Pantry of Sugar Grove held a ribbon-cutting to celebrate the new location.
The new, more centrally-located site is inside what used to be a bus barn where school buses were stored, and is positioned next to the Sugar Grove Township Community Building at 141 Main St.
For nearly 16 years, the pantry was located inside Engineering Enterprises Inc. at 52 Wheeler Road, a site that food pantry officials said was never supposed to be permanent.
Julie Walker of Sugar Grove, operations manager for the pantry, said that “the old site was never supposed to be long term anyway” adding that “it was just to get our feet on the ground.”
“We finally got a place through the township of Sugar Grove and it’s nice and centrally located,” she said. “It’s by the community building and the township office, not far from the library. We never want to forget EEI and their generosity. They were a longtime partner with us.”
Food Pantry Executive Director Shari Frieders said the pantry has undergone plenty of changes since being launched “following the 2008 economic crash.”
“A local family started this. Neighbors around here were having a hard time making ends meet and were underwater with their houses,” Frieders said. “A woman, Melisa Taylor, started with her girls over Christmas vacation a Fill Your Doorstep campaign where it invited neighbors to leave items on their front porches and then – out of her garage – she started a food pantry where people could come to get help.”
That grassroots efforts led to the realization “there was a broader service needed and so they talked about having a food pantry,” Frieders said.
“Melisa went to the founders of Engineering Enterprises and asked if they had some room. They invited us in and we were there for 16 years,” Frieders said. “We never talked about it being permanent but it was a comfortable relationship. Two years ago, EEI started to grow and needed some extra room to build out and we also saw some growth and were looking for a place to rent.”
Frieders said the group looked around until a founding member of the group, Pete Wallers, talked to Sugar Grove Township Supervisor Tom Rowe about the old bus barn that used to hold Kaneland school buses.
“It just kind of came together. We decided to build out in that old township (site) a little food pantry and maybe we could eventually have some daytime hours,” Frieders said.
According to Frieders, the doors at the new site actually opened in February.
“We had to get permits and other things and in October of 2024, we started the actual build-out and it took until February of this year to finish,” Frieders said.
Both Frieders and Walker said the pantry’s new site offers plenty of advantages.
“It’s more centrally located and it has now received more awareness. At EEI, we were in the back,” Frieders said.
Walker said for the time being, the food pantry will keep its same hours, with drive-thru food assistance offered from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Thursdays.
“We’re not looking to expand our hours at this point. We go with what our clients need,” she said. “It’s worked out just fine. Donations have been about the same and people from Sugar Grove have been very good as far as donations go.”
Jewel and Aldi continue to make donations weekly including vegetables, bread and dairy items, pantry officials said.
The food pantry is aided, Walker said, by about 20 volunteers.
She said that any perception of Sugar Grove having less need in terms of food assistance as compared to a larger town like Aurora is false.
“Food insecurity hits people of all economic backgrounds and also anyone can come to our food pantry. We’re not just Sugar Grove,” she said.
For more information, go to www.sugargrovefoodpantry.org.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
