Trader Joe’s Food Rescue Project
The Sharing Ministry has been the blessed recipient of Trader Joe’s donations from the Glenview and Northbrook stores for many, many years. Glenview’s store donates every day of the week but Saturday, and Northbrook’s store donates on the weekends. These donations add up, and in 2019 we received tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of donations from Trader Joe’s!
We enlist a big team of drivers to make this happen. Ed Krupa and Bill Thome have kept this team going on a daily basis for the past 18 years, both showing up daily at the Glenview store and enlisting nine others to help in rotation. Most recently, Jim Butler has been leading this effort. It can take as many as four SUVs to load all the produce, meat and bread that is offered to us.
This weekday team delivers the Trader Joe’s donations to local organizations such as Sacred Heart Convent in Wilmette for their outreach to the poor, including the First Baptist Mobile Food Pantry in Zion. Northfield Township Food Pantry, Niles Township Food Pantry and the Glenview Youth Center are also recipients.
Volunteers Bob and Patty Shannahan have been delivering weekend donations from Trader Joe’s Northbrook to the Sharing Room for the past 18 years! Every Saturday and every Sunday they pull up with a van-load of food and load up the Sharing Room cooler and freezers. Sr. Paulanne is able to serve her local clients through these donations; the balance makes its way to inner-city outlets we serve.
Regina Banks, a minister serving Action Coalition, Englewood, pulls produce from the Trader Joe’s weekend deliveries and creates and delivers food bags filled with healthy options to the needy in her community. The clients she serves are delighted by her weekly visits with nutrition and hope for a brighter future. She reports that people are so grateful for this food which helps them maintain better weight and improves a variety of health conditions. Without these deliveries they would be eating little, if any, fresh foods and meat.
OLPH Parishioner, Sarah Hill pulls up to the Sharing Room early Tuesday mornings and Lou Marohn and Mike Martinsen load up her vehicle with remaining donations for delivery to the St. James food pantry.
Cathy Moore, pantry director at St. James, is ever so grateful for the meat, fresh produce and bread that has been arriving through us for all these years. Fresh produce is otherwise a luxury at the pantry and the homeless whom they serve with these donations say it is the best lunch they receive anywhere. Some clients make it a point to visit the pantry exclusively on Tuesdays, knowing the treat in store for them with fresh foods, so hard to come by when you are poor. One family considers the Trader Joe’s bread they receive an absolute delicacy.
Cathy is grateful that she is able to provide these donations to her clients, 60% of whom are seniors, “I take pride in providing healthy food choices”. Cathy also indicates that the volume of Trader Joe’s food we deliver allows her to better allocate her funding to purchase other needed staples.
Be sure to remember the generosity of Trader Joe’s and mention our appreciation to the store manager, Paul Bolda, on your next shopping visit.
