The 18th annual Aurora Holiday Food Drive is about to start, and this year the theme could be renewal.
The food drive begins Saturday and will run through Nov. 26, the day before Thanksgiving.
For the Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry, the drive is always about renewal – collecting food to restock the shelves for the coming year.
“It’s a very grassroots food drive,” said Katie Arko, the pantry’s executive director. “It brings in a lot of food for us.”
But this year, the drive also represents the renewal of one of the grocery stores that has been part of the drive since it started 18 years ago, Prisco’s Family Market, 1108 Prairie St., Aurora.
The longtime West Side Aurora grocery had been closed since it suffered extensive storm damage in August, but it reopened Thursday, and will again be part of the drive.
Andy Guzauskas, Prisco’s owner, purchased food for the food drive back in August, and thought his store would be open well before Thursday.
“We thought when all this happened that we’d be open next week – then, oh, we’d find something else, then we thought we’d be open the next week, and we’d find something else …” Guzauskas said. “But November is too important of a month – for the food pantry and the community – to not be open.”
The Holiday Food Drive in Aurora began 18 years ago, organized by businessman Daniel Dolan to help restock the pantry’s shelves at a time when the need goes up. The Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry serves more than 1,500 families a week, and Arko said that will rise during the holiday season.
The need changes from year to year, and Heather Short, the pantry’s development and communications director, pointed out that this year, some of the traditional resources have “diminished as the economy is getting tight.”
“The price of groceries remains high, jobs are tough right now,” Arko said. “It has a snowball affect.”
Part of the food drive is also about getting volunteers, some to work two-hour shifts at one of the grocery stores handing out flyers to promote the sale of bags at the stores, and also to collect food. The drive is often a series of food drives held by organizations throughout the area which then donate the collected food to the pantry.
A number of churches are already involved in such drives, as well as service organizations and such groups as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. The Aurora Fire Department helps deliver food to the pantry.
One area where the pantry needs volunteers is for its delivery service, which has increased. The pantry will assemble bags and deliver them, but to do so means more volunteers to make the deliveries.
“They are all delivered by volunteers,” Arko said. “There is a need for those who have a couple of hours a week to deliver. The deliveries have caused us to pivot a little bit. We look for creative ways to make sure people don’t do without.”
The basic drive still works essentially like it always has. People can buy $5, $10 or $15 bags of groceries for the food drive at the participating grocery stores whenever they shop.
In addition to Prisco’s, the participating stores are Cermak Fresh Market, 1250 N. Lake St., Aurora, and Food Market La Chiquita, 1525 Douglas Road, Montgomery. Both stores have also participated for years in the drive.
People can also donate to the drive online, through the food pantry website, www.aurorafoodpantry.org/holidayfooddrive/
The food drive is sponsored by a number of Aurora businesses and individuals, including: Dolan & Murphy; Sue Scheuerman; CyrusOne; Konen Insurance; Aetna; Gerald Subaru of Naperville; Aurora Bank & Trust; Douglas Carpet One; Jakes, Inc.; Ald. Jonathan Nunez, 4th Ward; Sam’s Club; Factor; Old National Bank; Bob’s Discount Furniture Charitable Foundation, Inc.; Aurora Generation; Aurora Fastprint; Mercy Medical Center; and Mendel Plumbing & Heating.
Steve Lord is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
