Patrons of one North Side food pantry will now be able to fill out grocery orders from their phones or computers and pick them up without waiting.
Lakeview Pantry is the first food pantry in Chicago to offer the service.
Pantry operators hope the new option will allow them to reach more people.
“Based on census data, we know there are about 140,000 people who qualify for our services on the North Side, but we’re only serving about 9,000 of those,” the pantry’s director of development, Ashley Friend, said at a news conference Thursday.
“A big reason people don’t come is a lack of time — it can take two hours of standing in line,” she said of the traditional food pickups.
“But also there’s a dignity factor. People don’t want to have to come to a food pantry, so we built this really to serve those people, those working families.”
In order to qualify for the pantry’s food program, clients have to be 185% below the poverty line, Friend said.
“So for a family of four, that equates to a household income of about $40,000,” she said.
Orders are made on Tuesdays and will be ready for pickup on Thursdays between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. — clients can come in and out of the pantry’s headquarters, at 5151 N. Ravenswood Ave., with several boxes of groceries in just moments.
The pantry is looking to add more pick up dates as the program grows, as well as add curbside service. Sixty families are currently signed up.
The food pantry has an annual operating budget of $3 million and distributes about $3 million worth of food a year.
“I’m privileged to have access to this place. It’s a special place,” said Colt Seidman, 26, who’s been picking up food at the pantry for two years.
Adding to the grab-and-go experience is the fact that the operation will be run out of Lakeview Pantry’s new headquarters — a recently rehabbed building with new furnishings and a bright interior with a fresh coat of white paint.
