Hundreds of cars lined Evanston Township High School’s campus Sunday as volunteers carried food and household essentials into the Willie May Field House.
The community food drive, organized in just 10 days and staffed by over 150 volunteers, responded to uncertainty surrounding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits and heightened Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Evanston.
ETHS Community Service Coordinator Erin Claeys said the school was well-equipped to host the event because of its size and central location, calling Sunday’s turnout “mind-blowing.”
“We knew there were going to be a ton of people, but it has far exceeded our expectations,” Claeys said midway through the drive. “The line to drop off stuff is over an hour, and we’ve made, I think, hundreds if not thousands of dollars in grocery (gift) cards.”
SNAP, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and administered by the Illinois Department of Human Services, provides benefits to nearly 2 million residents across the state.
Because of the ongoing federal government shutdown, funds were not distributed on Nov. 1. However, following a court order, the Trump administration agreed Monday to pay half of scheduled payments using USDA contingency funds.
Still, IDHS said the shutdown will delay payments to Illinois residents.
“The federal government’s decision to fund reduced benefits will make it significantly more complicated for states to issue the funds, which will delay November SNAP benefits to households by days or weeks,” the department said in a statement on its website.
More than 100 community members signed up to work the food drive within 24 hours of its announcement. By midday Sunday, there had been more than 8,000 unique visitors to an online link showing the event’s shopping list, according to Valerie Kahan, one of its organizers.
“It looked like a bunch of people coming together saying, ‘We have to do something. Okay, let’s make a flyer.’ And then pushing it out and inviting our community to help us,” she said. “And this is what it looks like when the community shows up for one another.”
Food, household supplies and gift cards were available for pickup during the event and will now be distributed to families through local schools and food pantries.
Deanna Lesht and Lauren Thomas West, who co-manage Evanston Community Fridges, a mutual aid network of three refrigerators and pantries stocked with free food throughout the city, said instability around receiving SNAP benefits will worsen food insecurity in the area.
Thomas West said she has noticed rising demand for the fridges recently and expects it to grow as stricter eligibility and work requirements outlined in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act take effect in December. Policy changes, she explained, are directly affecting how families put food on the table each day.
“A lot of the narrative that I’ve been hearing is that moms and parents, but especially moms, who were stretching and maybe not eating dinner or not eating lunch, are now thinking, ‘Well, I’ll just eat every other day so that my kids can have food,’” Thomas West said.
Sunday’s food drive managed to restock several of the group’s fridges around Evanston.
Lesht added that community organizing is essential amid “overlapping concerns” about increased ICE and U.S. Border Patrol enforcement in Evanston. Specifically, Lesht said many families feel unsafe taking their children to school, especially after federal immigration enforcement activity near several Evanston/Skokie District 65 schools in the last month.
“What does that look like if kids are potentially relying on those school meals and not receiving them either?” Lesht said. “The community — and that includes Northwestern — needs to step up and figure out how folks are getting the things they need in a safe and accessible way.”
Chicago resident Londan Booth, a social worker at Lincoln Elementary School, volunteered at the event and said that many children are “very scared,” making recent school pick-up and drop-offs “a nightmare.”
But rather than focusing on the negative impacts of increased ICE enforcement, they said community members should emphasize “how quickly the community has come together to take care of (its) own.”
“When it comes to making sure somebody has a meal, there’s no stopping community,” Booth said. “This is a really great demonstration of that.”
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Related Stories:
— The Daily Explains: How will the government shutdown affect Evanston?
— Attendees and vendors talk SNAP benefit threats at Evanston Farmers Market
