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Community Corner

Food Pantry Inches Toward Goals for New Location

The Algonquin/Lake in the Hills Interfaith Food Pantry has raised $20,000 so far and hopes to open at its new facility on Pyott Road by next spring.

With a backdrop of fruit trees, a vegetable garden and a picturesque pond, the new location for the Algonquin/LITH Interfaith Food Pantry will be a respite for clients, said facility manager Sal Maggio.

With plans to restore part of the red pole barn on the Larson Farm, set back along Pyott Road, into a 3,800-square-foot pantry, the new location will be a place for those in need to get food and escape a little, he said.

“We’re going to try to make it as tranquil as we possibly can — so they can get away from the issues they have in their daily lives for a couple of hours,” said Maggio, pointing out the area where a vegetable garden will be planted.

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Grape vines and pear and apple trees all growing on the lush property just outside the pole barn and will be available for clients to pick, he said. And they will be welcome to fish from the large, stocked, pond. Windows will be installed in the side of the barn, “so they can look out at the beauty of the land out here,” Maggio said.

“It’s going to be so much fun for the kids to pick apples,” he said, looking at the fruit already popping out on the branches.

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Tentative Opening: Spring 2012

Pantry officials are leasing the property from the village of Lake in the Hills, with the 19-acre farm also being leased for horse stables.

Hoping to have the new facility operating by next spring, if not before, Maggio said, $20,000 of the $250,000 needed has been raised so far. Brochures and posters are being handed out, with 600 mailers sent out to LITH businesses, he said.

The pantry will be present at all of the LITH and Algonquin summer festivals, Maggio said, including Founders’ Days, Lake in the Hills Sunset Festival, the LITH Ribfest and the LITH Fall Festival.

“We’re trying to get the awareness out there,” he said. “We’re trying to set the pantry up for the future — for the next 50 years.”

Why the Need for New Food Pantry?

The need for a larger space was triggered in part by the enormous growth in clients, he said. The pantry has served between 25 and 30 new families every month since January, he said.

Working with 100 volunteers, volunteer manager for the pantry Mary Piemonte has seen the significant growth in families coming in for food.

“It used to be if we had three or four families come in at any given time we were open, that was a lot,” she said.

Now, she said, it’s typical to have between 30 and 35 families come in on a given day. Aside from the greater need, the current pantry is falling apart, she said.

“It is just a big storage shed. The building is deteriorating,” Piemonte said. “It’s definitely served its purpose.”

The new pantry will allow them to treat their clients with even more respect, she said, adding that they give people shopping carts to shop for their food at the pantry and don’t just hand them a bag of food.

“We definitely want to treat everybody with respect and dignity,” she said. “It’s very hard for them to come here.”

Operating Hours, Donations for Pantry

The operating hours — from 9:30 a.m. to noon Tuesdays and Thursdays and 9:30 a.m. to noon every first and third Saturday of the month — will stay the same at the new facility, Maggio said.

Donations can be made to the Algonquin/LITH Food Pantry C/O Algonquin Bank & Trust, 4049 Algonquin Road, Algonquin IL, 60102 or by going to www.alithfoodpantry.org and making a donation through PayPal.

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