Algonquin fourth grader rallies neighborhood for donations to District 300 food pantry

On a quiet Algonquin neighborhood street last week, 10 kids dashed from house to house picking up paper bags filled with food. These are all donations made by the neighborhood for a food drive that is hosted by a 10-year-old boy with a passion to give back.

This is Leo Bonilla’s third neighborhood food drive in efforts to collect donations for the D300 Food Pantry. But his giving doesn’t stop there: he also hosts annual monetary drives on Facebook and food drives at Neubert Elementary School, where he is a fourth grader.

Each year, he collects about $2,000 and 2,000 pounds for the school pantry. In the past four years, Leo has raised $7,300 and collected 5,300 pounds of food.

Carpentersville-based D300 Food Bank serves the Algonquin-based Community School District 300 community but is independent and completely run by volunteers. Leo’s efforts help the pantry grow, especially after the biggest turnout of people in need of food in its seven-year history took place in November, said Chuck Bumbales, a food bank board member and volunteer facilities manager.

And that demand has stayed constant, pantry manager Jennifer Delp said. The pantry has more than doubled the amount of households they can feed. They went from helping 3,300 families in 2021 to 6,500 in 2023, Delp said. She expects those numbers to grow even more this year as the pantry already has fed about 1,800 families from January through March.

The increased demand led pantry staff to open the facility from one night a week to two, starting in January, Delp said. She said she has never seen someone as young as Leo get involved with the food pantry.

“It’s amazing what this one individual is doing and it’s so great to see that in our school district and be a part of that,” she said. “We’re glad to have that representation.”

In his first two fundraising campaigns, Leo raised $3,300, which granted him the “Hunger Hero” award from the pantry in 2022. Those dollars go further with the pantry because every $1 donated equals $8 worth of food the pantry can buy through the Northern Illinois Food Bank.

“He really inspires, I think, not only other kids but other adults to get involved,” Delp said.

In order to sustain the number of people they feed, the pantry team is hoping to replace their refrigerated box truck that they use to pick up food, which “is definitely in need of replacement,” Delp said. She’s also looking into increasing the pantry’s cold storage capacity.

Leo’s school food drive is a friendly competition among classes, and he looks to continue his winning streak from last year. Each food item is a point and highly needed items such as cereal, syrup and pancake mix are two points, Leo said.

Leo started his food drive journey in 2020 when he saw TV news videos of people waiting in long lines for food. He took his change jar of $22 and was able to turn that into $100 from family and friends adding to the donation pile, his mom, Casey Bonilla, said. That sparked them to grow the donations even more by hosting a fundraiser on Facebook.

“Now he always wants to give. He’s always giving back,” Casey Bonilla said.

Leo’s giving nature is starting to rub off on his friends and classmates. This year, nine classmates are hosting their own neighborhood food drives, Casey Bonilla said.

“I felt excited,” Leo said. “If I got food and they got food, that’s a lot more.”

Leo plans to keep up the food drives for the foreseeable future and carry on as he moves on to Westfield Community School in two years. His baseline goal is to always hit $2,000 and 2,000 pounds of food, but hopes those numbers grow a little bit each year, he said.

“It’s nice to get more kids involved, and they see it feels good to help,” Casey Bonilla said.