With food insecurity on the rise across northern Illinois, a couple of Northern Illinois University graduates decided to give back to their alma mater and Northern Illinois Food Bank.
Joe and Giselle Intrakamhang, of Barrington, donated $50,000 to the NIU Foundation and another $50,000 to Northern Illinois Food Bank in support of reliable access to nutritious food for students pursuing their education.
Joe Intrakamhang, a board member with Northern Illinois Food Bank and the NIU Foundation, said their decision to donate was personal.
“Growing up, realizing what it means firsthand- food insecurity. What it takes away from your energy, your passion, your concentration and being able to thrive,” Intrakamhang said.
Julie Yurko, president and CEO of Northern Illinois Food Bank since 2014, said one in seven children in Illinois are currently “at risk of hunger.”
“We are at a historically high sustained need for help across northern Illinois,” Yurko said.
Current NIU students facing food insecurity can turn to Huskie Food Pantry, which was created 10 years ago after a student studied the effects of food insecurity on education. There, students can take food and other items from the pantry, including fresh produce, meat and more.
The pantry operates out of the Chick Evans Field House, 1050 Lucinda Ave., in DeKalb. It’s open from 4 to 6 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Ryan Goodman, 24, a second-year graduate student studying physical therapy, is also among the students who volunteer their time at Huskie Food Pantry.
“Things are certainly expensive, and unfortunately a lot of the food programs have been cut recently, so I think the need for it is definitely high,” Goodman said.
In May, Yurko said the Northern Illinois Food Bank is “deeply concerned” about recent changes to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The nonprofit serves 13 counties through more than 900 food pantries, shelters, soup kitchens and feeding programs.
In November 2025, Northern Illinois food pantries saw a spike in visits after SNAP benefits for many Illinoisans lapsed.
The need to help people combat food insecurity has increased this decade, Yurko said. Before the pandemic, the Northern Illinois Food Bank served about 300,000 people a month.
“For the last three years the average has been 570,000 every month, so we’re nearly double,” Yurko said.
That total is higher than it was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Yurko said.
“I believe finances are harder, the economy is harder, a living wage is harder for people to achieve,” Yurko said. “Food insecurity is financial insecurity.”
She also thinks the pandemic expanded the public’s knowledge of the help the Northern Illinois Food Bank provides.
“They’ve learned to trust us,” Yurko said. “So they come to us and use us as a strategy to make ends meet.”
Goodman has done more than volunteer for the Huskie Food Pantry. He said he has used the pantry while furthering his education and wanted to support the cause.
“What they have to offer is incredible,” Goodman said, after mentioning personal hygiene products can be picked up from the pantry. ”I figured I have time, and I have the ability to help, so I might as well help them once and awhile on top of using the pantry.”
He thinks attending college almost inherently means living below your means, which makes a food pantry vital.
“Knowing that you have it is extremely wonderful,” Goodman said. “I think it’s something that a lot of people should utilize, and if they are questioning if they should come, then I think that’s the opportunity that they should come check it out.”
Kelly Olson, the NIU dean of students, said she believes university officials should do everything in their power to make sure students on campus have food to eat.
Huskie Harvest, the university’s food recovery program, creates 700 meals a week from food that would otherwise go to waste.
“They are food that’s recovered from campus dining, from our catering events, from local restaurants,” Olson said. “They’re put into a meal package, frozen, and then students can eat those.”
Those meals can be picked up from Huskie Food Pantry, but also from food lockers placed throughout NIU’s campus.
As part of their ever-expanding mission to combat food insecurity on campus, two new freezers were delivered to Huskie Food Pantry Wednesday morning. Olson said the Intrakamhangs helped make that facility upgrade happen.
Intrakamhang, a 2002 NIU graduate and a former Data Science Lead at Google who is now the chief technology officer at SWARM Engineering, said, “People don’t realize that one in three college students are food insecure.”
He wants students not to have to worry about where their next meal will come from.
“We don’t want people to not perform well, or not do well, or drop out because it’s just – they just don’t have the right nutrition to actually study and get what they need,” Intrakamhang said.
Dining and Cooking