| Formation | 1983 |
|---|---|
| Type | Non-profit |
| Legal status | 501(c)(3) |
| Headquarters | 273 Dearborn Court Geneva, IL 60134 United States |
Region served | Northern Illinois |
| Membership | 300 pantries |
President and CEO | Julie Yurko |
| Website | solvehungertoday |
Northern Illinois Food Bank is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and a member of Feeding America, they serve 13 counties in suburban and rural Northern Illinois by providing 250,000 meals a day. [1] They bring together manufacturers, local and corporate grocers, area farmers, corporations, foundations, and individuals who donate food and funding, and each week nearly 1,000 volunteers help them evaluate, repack, and distribute food. [1] They also partner with more than 900 food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and youth and senior feeding programs to provide nutritious food and resources. [1] Their four distribution centers are located in Geneva, Lake Forest, Rockford and Joliet.
Donations come from food corporations and from grocery stores who give slightly damaged and unsellable goods. [6] Jewel-Osco has donated food to the Northern Illinois Food Bank since the late 1980s. [10]
The Food Bank works with over 900 food pantries, mobile food truck markets, and soup kitchens who distribute perishable and non perishable foods that can accommodate a variety of different dietary needs. [11]
Northern Illinois Food Bank has four distribution centers. They are located in Geneva, Lake Forest, Rockford, and Joliet.
The West Suburban Center (Geneva) is the largest with 147,000 square feet and provides more than 80 million meals a year in 13 counties throughout suburban and rural Northern Illinois. [12] [4]
The North Suburban Center (Lake Forest) distribution center has 28,000 square feet of space. [4]
The Northwest Center (Rockford) distribution center has 30,000 square feet of space and is home to the Food Bank's Neighborhood Market Food Pantry. [13]
The South Suburban Office (Joliet) distribution center serves Will, Kankakee, Kendall, and Grundy counties. [12] [4] The Joliet location has 18,000 square feet of space rented from Harvest Bible Chapel and includes refrigerators and freezers to store cold foods. [12]
The After School Program, or Child and Adult Care Feeding Program (CACFP) is an afterschool meal program funded by the USDA and administered by the Illinois State Board of Education. Northern Illinois Food Bank sponsors the program and gets reimbursed for serving meals to children at approved sites. [14]
The BackPack Program provides food to supplement weekend meals for a child and their siblings. Children are identified by school staff who recognize signs of chronic hunger or are aware of families dealing with food insecurity. They distribute backpacks to students on Fridays. The program is funded entirely by private donations. [14]
The Holiday Meal Box program is a yearly program conducted by the Food Bank, which began in 2019. Sponsors of the 2024 Holiday Meal Box program include Jewel-Osco, Nicor, Prinova, Tate & Lyle, Kubota, Winland Foods, and individual donors.
During the summer, Northern Illinois Food Bank operates a mobile program called Meals on the Move. The Meals on the Move truck travels to six different locations throughout Aurora to serve free meals to children 18 years and young. The program is administered by the Illinois State Board of Education in partnership with the USDA Summer Food Service Program. The program partners with the Aurora Public Library bookmobile and Fox Valley Park District Neighborhood Art Program to provide activities for the children.
My Pantry Express is an online food pantry developed and operated by Northern Illinois Food Bank in collaboration with community partners. The Food Bank was the first in the Feeding America network to launch an online food panty model.
Northern Illinois Food Bank participates in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food-purchasing assistance to individuals with little or no income to help them maintain adequate nutrition and health. [15]
The Summer Meal Program, or Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) is funded by the USDA and administered by the Illinois State Board of Education. Northern Illinois Food Bank sponsors the program and provides breakfast, lunch and snacks at over 130 locations to children 18 and under. The program runs from June to mid-August each year. [14]
Northern Illinois Food Bank holds four signature fundraisers annually: A Cup of Hope, a luncheon and auction held in March; the Fight Hunger 5K and Fun Run in April; A Taste That Matters in June, featuring a silent auction and culinary creation from over 30 local chefs; and the Hunger Scramble golf outing in August. [16]
Charity Navigator rated Northern Illinois Food Bank four out of four stars and gave it an overall score of 99%. The star rating is a reflection of the overall score. The overall score indicates how efficiently a charity will use their support, how well it has sustained its programs and services over time, and their level of commitment to accountability and transparency." [17]
In 2017, USDA gave Northern Illinois Food Bank's Summer Meal Program a silver 'Turnip the Beet' award for their participation in the program. [18]
In 2024, Northern Illinois Food Bank received the Feeding America Network Celebrations Award for its online ordering program, OrderAhead. [19]
Jewel-Osco is a regional supermarket chain in the Chicago metropolitan area, headquartered in Itasca, a western suburb. In 2007, the company had 188 stores across northern, central, and western Illinois; eastern Iowa; and portions of northwest Indiana. Jewel-Osco has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Boise-based Albertsons since 1999. The company originally started as a door-to-door coffee delivery service before it expanded into delivering non-perishable groceries and later into grocery stores, and supermarkets. Prior to its 1984 acquisition by American Stores, Jewel evolved into a large multi-state holding company that operated several supermarket chains and other non-food retail chain stores located from coast to coast and had operated under several different brand names.
The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The FNS is the federal agency responsible for administering the nation’s domestic nutrition assistance programs. The service helps to address the issue of hunger in the United States.
Government cheese is processed cheese provided to welfare beneficiaries, Food Stamp recipients, and the elderly receiving Social Security in the United States, as well as to food banks and churches. This processed cheese was used in military kitchens during World War II and has been used in schools since the 1950s.
Feeding America is a United States–based non-profit organization that is a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks that feed more than 46 million people through food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and other community-based agencies. Forbes ranks it as the largest U.S. charity by revenue. Feeding America was known as America's Second Harvest until August 31, 2008.
Connecticut Foodshare is a nonprofit organization based in Wallingford, Connecticut. It serves as the sole food bank for all of Connecticut.
The Arkansas Foodbank is a non-profit food bank located in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Arkansas Foodbank distributed more than 20.9 million pounds of food and grocery products to its member agencies for Arkansans in need in 2013, according to chief executive officer, Rhonda Sanders.
The Houston Food Bank (HFB) is a non-profit organization and the nation's largest food bank by distribution; providing access to 207 million nutritious meals in 18 counties in southeast Texas. The food bank's operations are made possible through a network of 1,800 community partners alongside their partner food banks in Montgomery County, Galveston and Brazos Valley. Headed by its current President and CEO, Brian Greene, the Houston Food Bank is a member organization of Feeding America, with a four-star rating from Charity Navigator. The Houston Food Bank, which bares the mission statement of Food for Better Lives, continues to be acknowledged for its community impact. Notable recognitions include Food bank of the Year in 2015, presented by Feeding America and the Pinnacle winner in 2012 and 2014, presented by the Better Business Bureau.
Food rescue, also called food recovery, food salvage or surplus food redistribution, is the practice of gleaning edible food that would otherwise go to waste from places such as farms, produce markets, grocery stores, restaurants, or dining facilities and distributing it to local emergency food programs.
Redwood Empire Food Bank (REFB) is a food bank on the North Coast of California which belongs to the Feeding America network. Its mission is to end hunger in its community.
The Greater Chicago Food Depository (GCFD) is a nonprofit organization that fights hunger throughout Cook County, Illinois. The GCFD distributes donated and purchased food through a network of 700 food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and community programs, serving more than 800,000 adults and children every year. In fiscal year 2016, the GCFD distributed more than 70 million pounds of nonperishable food, produce, dairy products, and meat - the equivalent of more than 160,000 meals every day. Of the $96,883,955 spent in 2016, over 90% went to direct food distribution programs.
The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) is a program that evolved out of surplus commodity donation efforts begun by the USDA in late 1981 to dispose of surplus foods held by the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). This program was explicitly authorized by the Congress in 1983 when funding was provided to assist states with the costs involved in storing and distributing the commodities. The program originally was entitled the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program when authorized under the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Act of 1983. The program was renamed to The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) in 1990.
The New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH) is a nonprofit organization, which aims to “enact innovative solutions to help society move ‘beyond the soup kitchen’ to ensure economic and food self-sufficiency for all Americans”. NYCCAH works collaboratively with local, state, and national legislatures as well as New York residents and community associations. In contrast to other organizations, NYCCAH generally does not distribute food but rather concerns itself with providing technical assistance to groups which do while simultaneously affecting hunger policy at a more macro-urban scale.
Hunger in the United States of America affects millions of Americans, including some who are middle class, or who are in households where all adults are in work. The United States produces far more food than it needs for domestic consumption—hunger within the U.S. is caused by some Americans having insufficient money to buy food for themselves or their families. Additional causes of hunger and food insecurity include neighborhood deprivation and agricultural policy. Hunger is addressed by a mix of public and private food aid provision. Public interventions include changes to agricultural policy, the construction of supermarkets in underserved neighborhoods, investment in transportation infrastructure, and the development of community gardens. Private aid is provided by food pantries, soup kitchens, food banks, and food rescue organizations.
The Freestore Foodbank is the largest emergency food and services provider to children and families in Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana.
Second Harvest North Florida (SHNF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Jacksonville, Florida, that performs food rescue and redistribution to partner agencies in one quarter of Florida's 67 counties. The charitable organization has been active for over 30 years.
Rosemarie Burian, OSF, D. Min., was a Wheaton Franciscan Sister, teacher and founder of the Bethlehem Center/Northern Illinois Food Bank.
Food Lifeline is a non-profit organization that supplies food to different food banks across Western Washington. Food Lifeline is responsible for repackaging and delivering food to 275 different organizations that distribute meals to the Western Washington population. Out of all the food distributed to these different organizations, 30% of the meals end up coming directly from Food Lifeline alone. Food Lifeline is part of a nationwide non-profit called Feeding America and assists in collecting food that would otherwise go to waste.
St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance is a nonprofit, nonsectarian organization located in Phoenix, Arizona. Founded in 1967 by John van Hengel, St. Mary's was the first modern organization to operate using the food bank model, which spread throughout U.S. and the rest of the world. Today, St. Mary's is recognized as the world's first food bank.
Share Food Program is a social services organization working for hunger relief in the Philadelphia region of Pennsylvania, United States. It serves as a food bank to the communities in accordance with USDA civil rights regulations and feeds more than 1 million people each month in Philadelphia and the suburbs. Share Food Program is the largest hunger-relief agency in the Greater Philadelphia area.
Midwest Food Bank is an American 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that gathers food donations, primarily from large companies, and distributes them to other non-profit organizations and disaster sites. Founded on a family farm in Bloomington, Illinois, in 2003, Midwest Food Bank began expanding in 2005 after contributing to disaster relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina. Currently, it operates ten locations in the United States and two internationally. As of 2021, it was the United States' thirty-ninth-largest charity and second-largest food bank by revenue; each month, it distributes more than $32 million worth of food to more than 2,000 other non-profit organizations.
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