Westside food pantry reaches their Octoberfest fundraising goal in hopes of relocating to a long term location and expanding their community services

	By Valeria Garcia, Arts and Culture Editor, The Real Chi

The Pilsen Food Pantry surpassed their $100,000 goal for their Octoberfest Pilsen Food Pantry fundraiser to secure funding to purchase the building the organization is currently operating out of or purchase a different building to expand their anti-poverty programs.

Pilsen Food Pantry’s Octoberfest is a series of events held throughout October in effort for community activity and fundraising opportunities. This year, Pilsen Food Pantry expanded their annual Halloween celebration by offering residents a whole week filled with events. 

The Octoberfest funding will allow the Pilsen Food Pantry to discover community gaps along with solutions in providing the necessary services to residents along with supporting their other initiatives. 

“Computer access is a huge issue. Mental health is a huge issue. Food insecurity is a huge issue. So, these are spaces we really want to focus on in order to support people that are chronically housing insecure due to needs for greater social service support,” said Dr. Evelyn Figueroa, founder of the Pilsen Food Pantry.

When planning the fundraising events, Figueroa along with Pilsen Food Pantry special events manager Natalia Gonzalez wanted to help the Pilsen community celebrate Halloween tradition and ensure children within the community did not feel excluded from traditions due to the ongoing poverty stigma. 

“So, for me, this part is really important that the kids that are using our pantry and families that are using our pantry can have the same traditions that I took for granted,” said Figueroa.

Figueroa recognizes the importance of serving a community and wanted to expand on this by not only looking into expanding programs, but also expanding the pantry’s space. Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th Ward) introduced the pantry’s current location to her in an effort to help expand social services programs in a bigger space. The pantry’s current 180 S. Throop St. location is a vacant church currently owned by the Archdiocese of Chicago. Figueroa said she has been in communication with the Archdiocese since November 2019 about purchasing the church and transforming the space to better suit the pantry’s needs. She said she had a desire to “love and adopt that building and [try] to figure out a number of different business plans that would allow us to do that.”

Figueroa first visited the building in January 2020. Since then, Figueroa has run into complications in purchasing the building. The building is in need of modernization, therefore, it is contingent on the Pilsen Food Pantry to perform necessary mechanical renovations to bring the building up to better accessibility and efficiency for a lease period, according to Figueroa.

Figueroa said she hasn't received a clear response from the Archdiocese of Chicago about what they plan to do with the building. 

“We sometimes get a response that they want to [sell us the building]. They want to see us work things out with the building and then sometimes they allude to having a different strategy for how they would like to repurpose the building in the future,” said Figueroa. 

The Archdiocese of Chicago did not respond to The Real Chi’s request for comment. 

Figueroa disclosed that the Pilsen Food Pantry has gotten the building appraised and has put in an offer. However, she said she was told in August the Archdiocese would make a counter offer , but have yet to receive an offer. 

Despite the delayed approval, the Pilsen Food Pantry has not halted its efforts to invest in and better serve the community.

“Food pantries are very local. If you are visiting a food pantry, like I mentioned, there are probably other economic barriers that include transportation and disability,” said Figueroa. “So, it’s going to be very important that we’re close to public transportation, and we’re within walking distance of the folks that are already visiting our pantry.

Figueora mentioned ways residents could help the pantry.

“If you don’t have money to donate, that's okay, come and volunteer with us,” she said. “If you can’t volunteer with us, that’s okay. Recycle your aluminum cans and/or bring us your crush cans and we’ll carry them away. We want to leave value to all the folks in the community.”

This fundraiser was only the beginning of Figueroa’s future plan to transform the Pilsen Food Pantry into Pilsen Social Health Initiative, a community center that supports “medical wellness through social programming,” according to Figueroa. 

In order to provide a community space that offers universal social services programs, there needs to be enough room in the building to run them, according to Figueroa, although it wasn’t in the original plan, it seems based on her communication with the Archdiocese of Chicago, “they prefer to sell the entire parcel,” The pantry is currently occupying three out of the 12 city lots the parcel owns, which Figueroa reported, “It’s a much bigger purchase than we initially thought we were going to be embarking on.”

Figueiroa realizes that when establishing supporting housing programs it’s also essential to be focusing on mental health.

As a family doctor, Figueroa recognizes that there have been poverty and cultural barriers placed against mental health services. Therefore, she plans to establish Pilsen Food Pantry into becoming a “trusted community entity” by developing resources and access points such as “low income housing and homelessness prevention programs.” 

 “A lot of folks that have trauma, serious mental illness, substance use disorders,” said Figueroa. 

Figueroa plans to add literacy programs for residents, which range up to but not limited to computer literacy. This type of programming will range from helping residents complete their GED to SNAP application assistance, along with assistance with writing and literacy according to Dr. Figueroa. 

Pilsen Food Pantry is open Monday through Friday and is currently providing more than food. Current programs include a clothing store program, community library, free medical supplies, community garden, and free physical therapy.