Minooka middle school students held mobile food pantry on Saturday

More than 250 people were not hungry Saturday, due to a group of hardworking junior high school students.

On Saturday, approximately 30 students loaded food into cars at Minooka Junior High School during a Northern Illinois Food Bank mobile market, hosted by the school’s student council and Minooka National Junior Beta Club

A mobile market is a mobile food truck that distributes free food at a certain location to people who need groceries, such as breads, cereals, dairy products and meat, the food bank said. People don’t need to bring any identification, proof of income or referral to a mobile market, the food bank said.

Jake Null, agency pickup representative for the food bank, was onsite Saturday helping to unload the truck and break down the food. Each family received an equal amount of product regardless of family size, Null said.

Null said before the pandemic, those in need of food could select their own items.

“We now have a drive-up model,” Null said. “There’s less contact.

The mobile market was the culmination of a partnership between the school’s clubs and the food bank’s South Suburban Center in Joliet that began in December. In 2023, the students donated more than 400 hours sorting and packing boxes of food, according to the Northern Illinois Food Bank.

Heather Meade, a teacher at Minooka Junior High School who helped to coordinate the volunteer program for the students, said both student council and Beta Club focus on leading through service.

“Impacting positive change through service, no matter how small it may seem, creates ripple effects that push students, schools, and communities to grow,” Meade said in a news release from the food bank.

Steve Harold, processing coordinator at the South Suburban Center, said Heather Meade, a teacher at Minooka Junior High, had reached out to him in December and said she had 230 students interested in volunteering at the food bank.

By the time Harold met the students in December, they were already discussing the possibility of hosting a mobile market at their school, he said.

“I was so impressed with them all,” Harold said. “I told them if they had not worked out the plans yet, I’d be happy to help.”

Meade met Harold in 2018 at the first packing event at the South Suburban Center when she volunteered with a group of her peers, she said. Steven Warcholek, also a teacher at Minooka Junior High School, had volunteered at mobile food pantries at Joliet Junior College the past three summers, he said.

Warcholek said his and Meade’s hope when creating the program was larger than just volunteering at a packing event or hosting a mobile food pantry.

“We wanted to create a partnership with the food bank and us,” Warcholek said.

So Meade and Warcholek suggested the idea to the students and they loved it, they said. The students also hosted fundraisers two fundraisers in the fall and are planning a third in May, Lexi Guerrero, 14, an eighth-grader who is a member of both student council and Beta Club, she said.

Guerrero said students held “candy grams” before Halloween and Christmas, selling suckers (October) and candy canes (December) at school for $1. The students raised $1,000 and $400 respectively for the food bank.

But Guerrero also loved volunteering at the food bank with her friends.

“It’s a really fun experience,” Guerrero said. “It’s definitely difficult to count 50 rollups over and over. But it’s fun to talk with friends and help people you know need help.”

Keaton Kapellas, 13, a seventh-grader and member of Beta Club, said he learned the extent schools reach beyond its walls when the students tried to schedule the mobile market. The school always seemed to be booked for various events.

“I learned how much schools can impact change in the community and everybody’s lives,” Kapellas said. “This highlights the positive impact schools can have in the community outside school and outside the academics.”

Most importantly, Kapellas said the students’ volunteerism is helping to eliminate bias toward people in need of food. Many of the students now volunteer with their families on their own time, outside of their involvement with student council and Beta Club, he said.

Harold said the students’ efforts to remove the stigma will positively affect the next generation.

“If someone needs food, all the kids say, ‘Go to the food pantry or go to the food bank,’” Harold said. “And they have no problem with that.”

Philip Santaniello is the manager of the South Suburban Center

KNOW MORE

According to the Northern Illinois Food Bank, 64,100 people in Will County and 5,400 people in Grundy County experience food insecurity. Here are some of the ways the food bank helps in each county.

For more information, visit solvehungertoday.org.

Will County

• 53 food pantries

• 5 soup kitchens

• 1 group home/shelter

• 3 senior sites

• 30 backpack program sites

• 28 child program sites

• 878,000 meals distributed through mobile markets and pop-ups

• 74,000 meals distributed through Healthy Community programs

• 162,000 meals distributed through child nutrition programs

Grundy County

• 4 food pantries

• 2 child program sites

• 189,000 meals distributed through retail food recovery

• 163,000 meals distributed through mobile markets