A food pantry has been opened on Thursday at Edward Hines Jr. Veterans Affairs Hospital near Maywood to cater to the veterans just a week before Veterans Day.
According to reports, this is the second pantry that is operated by the Greater Chicago Food Depository that focuses on serving food to the poor as well as to the vulnerable military personnel from the past years.
The food pantry in the said hospital aims to offer the veterans some kind of help by giving them fresh apples, cabbage, kale and oranges and packages of canned beans, loaves of bread, macaroni and even ground turkey. There will be additional food items but it has not been elaborated.
Just after it has opened, veterans have already lined up in the said hospital. The pantry reportedly expected over a hundred veterans and pressed that they will continue the program as long as they are in need. The pantry is said to operate on Thursdays from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m and will be managed by volunteers as well as staff from AmeriCorps.
Director of veteran relations of the said groups, Angel La Luz, pressed that they have always served a large population of veterans and there is a certain percentage of them accessing their network. La Luz added that not all veterans are being served so they thought it would be better if they would go to the said hospital where they are being cared for.
La Luz pressed 18 percent of the households that go to their group for free groceries are former members of the Unites States Armed Forces. According to figures, 7 percent of the 76,000 veterans in Illinois who were deployed after 2001 are now living under the poverty line. Another 12 percent of the said number of veterans are working but has low income. This has been reported by the Social Impact Research Center.
The other food pantry by the Food Depository has been set up at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center located in West Loop has reportedly given assistance to over 19,000 families.
